SanDisk CEO Harari Bullish About Flash Memory

SanDisk CEO Eli Harari believes that at $2/GB SSDs aren't competitive yet with hard drives.

But he is bullish about the technology's prospects and believes it offers an ideal storage solution for netbooks.

In an interview with Tech Trader Daily, he said that you can buy an 80 GB HDD for USD $30-$35.

SanDisk CEO Eli Harari

However, that same USD $30 would only get you 15 GB of flash. He suggests that 32 GB of storage is probably enough for many netbook applications.

But to be competitive with hard drives, Harari said the flash industry will have to be able to sell at USD $1/GB while maintaining profitability.

He said that wasn't possible at the current 42-43 nm process technology now used for manufacturing flash.

But he believes it should be possible at 24 nm, or two generations ahead of the current technology.

Harari told Tech Traders usage of SSDs will start to pick up in this year's second half and hit the mainstream in a big way in 2011.