SanDisk 2006 Annual Report Download - page 60

Products Group at Applied Materials, Inc. He joined Applied Materials in 2000 as Chief Technical Officer of the
Transistor and Capacitor Products Business Group. Previously, from 1997 to 2000, Dr. Thakur was Vice President
of Research and Development at AG Associates and Chief Technology Officer and General Manager at Steag
Electronic Systems after its acquisition of AG Associates. He also held various technical and management positions
at Micron Technology from 1991 to 1997. Dr. Thakur has extensive experience in semiconductor manufacturing,
holds more than 250 patents and has published more than 200 technical publications. Dr. Thakur received his
B.S. degree (honors) in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from the Regional Engineering College,
Kurukshetra, India, and an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.
Dr. Thakur received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma.
Yoram Cedar is our Executive Vice President, Mobile Business and Corporate Engineering. Prior to October
2005, Mr. Cedar served as our Senior Vice President of Engineering and Emerging Market Business Development.
Mr. Cedar began his career at SanDisk in 1998 when he joined as Vice President of Systems Engineering. He has
extensive experience working in product definition, marketing and development of systems and embedded flash-
based semiconductors. Prior to SanDisk, he was the Vice President of New Business Development at Waferscale
Integration and has more than 27 years of experience in design and engineering management of electronic systems.
Mr. Cedar earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Architecture from Technion, Israel
Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS
Our operating results may fluctuate significantly, which may adversely affect our operations and our stock
price. Our quarterly and annual operating results have fluctuated significantly in the past and we expect that they
will continue to fluctuate in the future. This fluctuation could result from a variety of factors, including, among
others:
• average selling prices, net of promotions, declining at a faster rate than cost reduction for our products due to
industry or SanDisk excess supply and competitive pricing pressures;
• addition of new competitors, expansion of supply from existing competitors and ourselves creating excess
market supply, which could cause our average selling prices to decline faster than our costs decline;
• impairment of goodwill, business integration and other challenges related to our acquisition of msystems
and Matrix;
• timing, volume and cost of wafer production from the FlashVision, Flash Partners and Flash Alliance
ventures as impacted by fab start-up delays and costs, technology transitions, yields or production
interruptions due to natural disasters, power outages, equipment failure or other factors;
• disruption in the manufacturing operations of suppliers, including suppliers of sole-sourced components;
• unpredictable or changing demand for our products, particularly demand for certain types or capacities of
our products or demand for our products in certain markets or geographies;
• excess supply from captive sources due to output increasing faster than the growth in demand resulting in
excess inventory;
• insufficient supply from captive and non-captive sources or insufficient capacity from our test and assembly
subcontractors to meet demand;
• reduction in price elasticity of demand related to pricing changes for some of our more mature markets for
NAND flash memory;
• potential delays in the emergence of new markets and products for NAND flash memory and acceptance of
our products in these markets;
• our license and royalty revenues may decline significantly in the future as our existing license agreements
and key patents expire;
• timing of sell-through by our distributors and retail customers;
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Annual Report