Report: Apple buys Anobit for $390 million

Peter Clarke

January 12, 2012

Peter Clarke

LONDON – Consumer electronics giant Apple has bought flash memory controller startup Anobit Technologies Ltd. for about $390 million, according to Bloomberg report that referenced two unnamed Anobit shareholders as its sources.

The deal was signed on Jan. 6, and for a sum below that being sought by Anobit, which had been previously reported as between $400 million and $500 million.

Anobit (Herzeliya, Israel) has developed NAND flash memory controller technology that can improve the apparent endurance – the number of reads and writes flash memory can perform. The raw endurance performance of flash memory reduces dramatically with reduction in the geometry of the manufacturing process technology, to the point where flash memory becomes unsuitable for many applications.

The improved endurance can be used to allow less flash memory die to be used to attain a certain level of guaranteed memory capacity. Apple is the world's largest purchaser of NAND flash memory (about 23 percent of global supply) for inclusion its smartphones and tablet computers and therefore exclusive control of the Anobit technology could provide a significant advantage for the company

Anobit was founded in 2006 to make solid-state drives. It's MSP (Memory Signal Processing) technology is a combination of error correction and memory management schemes that compensates for errors and evens out wear thereby allowing higher apparent performance.

Anobit is believed to have received more than $72 million from venture capital firms including Pitango, Battery Ventures, Intel Capital and Micron Technologies and has about 200 staff.

In August Anobit announced that it had shipped more than 20 million flash controllers and that its MSP2025 supported up to 256-Gbyte of NAND flash implemented on 20-nm and sub-20-nm process technology.

Anobit entered the Silicon 60, EE Times' list of emerging startup companies at version 12.0 in 2011. The  latest edition of the Silicon 60 is version 12.5, which is the topic of a detailed technology and employment digital edition which can be accessed via http://e.ubmelectronics.com/Silicon60/index.html


Related links and articles:

Report: Apple in talks to buy flash memory firm

Anobit battles 'plummeting' flash endurance

Intel funds SSD maker Anobit