The consolidation on the market of solid-state drives is in full swing right now. Just recently Seagate agreed to acquire LSI SandForce and LSI Nytro divisions from Avago, whereas yesterday SanDisk announced its takeover of Fusion-io. It is not surprising that large makers of SSDs and NAND flash memory are interested to either buy independent developers of SSD controllers, or at least invest in them.

As the market of solid-state drives continues to expand, Micron Technology (a leading maker of NAND flash and a manufacturer of solid-state drives) and SK Hynix (a top maker of NAND flash, which also makes its own SSDs based on proprietary controllers) are getting interested to invest in independent developers of SSD controllers, such as Silicon Motion Technology, Phison Electronics and JMicron Technology to strengthen their competitiveness, reports DigiTimes.

SK Hynix has been collaborating with Silicon Motion for some time now. Phison Electronics has worked with both Micron and Kingston. JMicron was a pioneer on the market of SSD controllers for consumer solid-state drives.

Large makers of NAND flash memory are interested in prosperity of independent designers of high-quality SSD controllers. Availability of such chips helps to ensure that there are inexpensive solid-state drives on the market, which helps to popularize the technology in general. Moreover, quality SSD controllers allow smaller SSD makers to better compete against large manufacturers, such as Toshiba, Samsung Electronics, Seagate and other, who have their own controllers and/or NAND flash.

Micron and SK Hynix did not comment on the news-story.

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KitGuru Says: While it is logical for companies like SK Hynix, Micron and Kingston to help independent developers of SSD controllers, it is highly likely that eventually Micron, Kingston or SK Hynix (which already owns LAMD) will simply buy one of such developers…

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