SanDisk (known as SunDisk until 1995) is an American multinational computer technology corporation that manufactures and markets flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, solid-state drives (SSDs), and digital audio players. The original company, SanDisk Corporation, was acquired by Western Digital in 2016.
SanDisk was founded in 1988 by Eli Harari, Sanjay Mehrotra, and Jack Yuan. SanDisk’s co-founder Eli Harari developed the Floating Gate EEPROM, which demonstrated the practicality, reliability, and durability of semiconductor-based data storage.
In 1991, SanDisk produced the first flash-based solid-state drive (SSD) for IBM, with a capacity of 20 MB in a 2.5-inch hard drive form factor, priced at approximately $1,000.
In 1992, SanDisk introduced the FlashDisk, a series of memory cards designed for the PCMCIA (PC Card) form factor, allowing them to fit into the expansion slots of many laptops and handheld computers of that era. Unlike similar products at the time, FlashDisks did not require batteries to retain their data. SanDisk discontinued production in 2002, with the highest-capacity model offering 8 GB of storage.
In 1995, shortly before its initial public offering (IPO), SunDisk changed its name to SanDisk to avoid confusion with Sun Microsystems, a prominent computer manufacturer at the time.
On May 10, 2000, Japan’s Toshiba Corporation and SanDisk Corporation announced the creation of a new joint venture semiconductor company focused on producing advanced flash memory, primarily for digital cameras.
In 2005, SanDisk entered the digital audio player market with the release of its first flash-based MP3 player, the SanDisk Sansa e100. By 2006, the company had become the second-largest digital audio player manufacturer in the U.S., after Apple.
