SanDisk 2008 Annual Report Download - page 10

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Buy Co., Inc., or Best Buy, Costco Wholesale Corporation, RadioShack Corporation, Staples, Inc., and Wal-Mart
Stores, Inc. In Europe and Asia, our key customers include Duttenhofer GmbH & Co. KG, Hama GmbH & Co.
KG, or Hama, Kaga Electronics Co. Ltd., Nokia Corporation, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB and
Zenitron Corporation.
Additional Information. We were incorporated in Delaware in June 1988 under the name SunDisk
Corporation and changed our name to SanDisk Corporation in August 1995. We file reports and other
information with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, including annual reports on Form 10-K,
quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and proxy or information statements. Those reports
and statements and all amendments to those documents filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of
the Securities Exchange Act (1) may be read and copied at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street,
N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549, (2) are available at the SEC’s internet site (http://www.sec.gov), which contains
reports, proxy and information statements and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the
SEC and (3) are available free of charge through our website as soon as reasonably practicable after electronic
filing with, or furnishing to, the SEC. Information regarding the operation of the SEC’s Public Reference Room
may be obtained by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. Our website address is www.sandisk.com. Information
on our website is not incorporated by reference nor otherwise included in this report. Our principal executive
offices are located at 601 McCarthy Blvd., Milpitas, CA 95035, and our telephone number is (408) 801-1000.
SanDisk is a trademark of SanDisk Corporation, and is registered in the United States, or U.S., and other
countries. Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of
their respective holder(s).
Description of Our Business
Industry Background. We operate in the digital electronics industry, which encompasses personal
computers, or PCs, notebook computers, consumer electronics, communications and industrial products. Our
products use flash memory to store digital information for devices such as mobile phones, digital cameras, digital
video camcorders, gaming devices, portable digital audio/video players, PCs, blade servers and global
positioning system, or GPS, devices. These applications require storage that is small in form factor, portable and
removable, highly reliable, high capacity, low in power consumption and heat dissipation, and capable of
withstanding high levels of shock vibration and temperature fluctuation.
The flash memory market is primarily comprised of NOR and NAND technologies. NOR is traditionally
used for code storage and is characterized by fast read speeds. NOR generally costs more per megabyte and has
lower storage capacities than NAND. NAND flash memory is traditionally used for embedded and removable
data storage and is characterized by fast write speeds and high capacities. We internally develop NAND flash
memory technologies, produce the flash memory primarily through the flash ventures with Toshiba and utilize
this production output in products that we design and sell to our various end markets.
Our Primary End Markets. We currently focus on three primary markets:
Consumer. We make and sell flash storage products that address multiple consumer markets. Certain
flash storage cards are used as the film for all major brands of digital cameras. Our cards are also used
to store video in solid-state digital camcorders and to store digital data in many other devices, such as
maps in GPS devices. In addition, portable game devices now include advanced features that require
high capacity memory storage cards and we provide SD cards, Memory Stick PRO Duocards and
USB drives that are all specifically packaged for the gaming market. We also sell a line of digital
media players with both embedded and removable memory under our Sansa®brand with varying
combinations of audio and video capabilities. We recently introduced slotMusiccards which are
preloaded with music content and can be used in a wide variety of mobile phones and digital media
players. Primary card formats for consumer devices include CF, SD, Memory Stick®and xD-Picture
Card.
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