SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced that the iNAND Extreme™ embedded flash drive (EFD) has been optimized to provide advanced digital storage in tablets powered by the new 22nm Intel^® Atom™ system-on-a-chip (SoC) introduced by Intel last week. The new enhancements to the iNAND Extreme make it faster, more responsive and highly compatible with the SoC formally known as “Bay Trail.”

SanDisk is currently sampling the iNAND Extreme to leading mobile device manufacturers for use in future, cutting-edge Android™ and Windows^® 8 tablets featuring high-performance and energy efficient Intel Atom Z3000 processors.

Offering outstanding sequential and random read and write speeds, SanDisk’s innovative iNAND Extreme supports the high performance of the Intel Atom Z3000 series. It enables outstanding user experiences – from smooth streaming of HD¹ video, to fast synchronization with data in the cloud, to quicker application launching.

“We are pleased to offer the tremendous storage performance of SanDisk’s iNAND Extreme for use in tablets incorporating Intel’s impressive new Intel Atom platform,” said Drew Henry, senior vice president and general manager, Mobile and Connected Solutions, SanDisk. “We have clearly just scratched the surface of the potential for tablets to transform the user experience, and our iNAND Extreme enables developers to introduce the next wave of highly responsive tablets that offer richer entertainment, awe-inspiring graphics, and more productive business applications.”

According to Strategy Analytics, branded tablet shipments are expected to reach more 180 million units worldwide in 2013².

“Robust consumer demand for more convenient and better mobile computing options has driven rapid growth in the tablet market, with branded tablet shipments up nearly 55 percent worldwide in 2013 compared to last year,” said Peter King, director of Tablet & Touchscreen Strategies at Strategy Analytics. “Notable advancements at the semiconductor level pave the way for a new generation of tablets that offer longer battery life, more responsive digital entertainment, and computing experience that is more closely aligned with what was once only possible on a PC.”

iNAND Extreme, available in capacities of up to 128GB³, brings nimble and low-power flash-memory storage to tablets. Based on SanDisk’s intelligent flash memory architecture, iNAND Extreme significantly improves multimedia synchronization speeds and operating-system responsiveness in mobile devices. iNAND Extreme offers sequential write/read speeds up to 45/150 MB/s, and random write /read speeds up to 800/4K IOPS⁴.