SanDisk

Eli Harari, Sanjay Mehrotra and Jack Yuan founded SunDisk in Sunnyvale, California in 1988, bringing experience in device physics, memory-system design and fabrication processes. The former company’s annual report records its Delaware incorporation in June 1988.⁠[2][3]

The Computer History Museum records a 1991 SunDisk flash-SSD prototype for IBM, combining flash memory with a controller that detected and corrected defective cells. It demonstrated flash-based mass storage; earlier SSDs had used volatile RAM with backup power.⁠[4]

SanDisk and other industry companies established the CompactFlash Association in 1995 to develop removable-memory-card standards and interoperability. The association later continued standards work for professional media, including CFexpress.⁠[5]

SunDisk changed its name to SanDisk Corporation in August 1995. Its initial public offering took place on November 8, 1995, with shares trading on Nasdaq as SNDK. The renaming and offering occurred at separate points in the year.⁠[3][6]

Panasonic, then Matsushita Electric, and Toshiba approached SanDisk in 1998 to develop a new memory-card format. The SD standard arrived in 2000, and the three companies founded the SD Association. Early cards held 8MB; standardization gave cameras, portable devices and cards from different suppliers a common interface.⁠[7]

SanDisk completed its all-stock acquisition of Israel’s msystems on November 19, 2006, making it a wholly owned subsidiary. The completion filing estimated the consideration at approximately $1.5 billion. The acquired business supplied flash-memory systems for mobile, portable and embedded applications.⁠[8][9]

A 2011 financing release hosted by Intel listed SanDisk among Matrix PartnersMatrix PartnersMatrix Partners, now branded Matrix, is a US early-stage venture capital firm with roots in Hellman, Ferri Investment Associates, established in 1977. Matrix was founded in 1982 and invests in technology companies from the idea stage through Series A.Open the full entry’ historical investments. This establishes the institutional relationship, without demonstrating Warren HellmanWarren HellmanWarren Hellman (1934–2011) was an investor, philanthropist and banjo player. He served as president of Lehman Brothers, co-founded Hellman & Friedman and founded San Francisco’s free Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival.Open the full entry’s personal involvement in that investment.⁠[10]

On July 23, 2014, SanDisk completed its acquisition of Fusion-io for approximately $1.1 billion, net of cash assumed. Fusion-io developed flash-based PCIe hardware and software for enterprise and hyperscale datacenters, expanding SanDisk’s enterprise-storage business.⁠[11]

Western Digital and SanDisk announced a cash-and-stock acquisition agreement on October 21, 2015. The offer valued SanDisk’s equity at approximately $19 billion using the share-price benchmark specified in the announcement.⁠[12]

Western Digital completed the acquisition on May 12, 2016 and retained the SanDisk brand. Its fiscal 2016 annual report recorded an aggregate purchase price of $15.59 billion, comprising cash, issued shares and assumed equity awards at fair value, a different measure from the 2015 offer valuation.⁠[13][14]

A securities class action involving purchasers of the former SanDisk’s shares in 2014–2015 settled through a $50 million fund. The administrator records payments to authorized claimants on July 15, 2020. The settlement did not follow a final merits determination in either side’s favor.⁠[15]

Users sued in 2023 over certain Atlas-R Extreme, Extreme Pro and WD My Passport SSDs, alleging inaccessible data and overpayment. Manufacturers provided firmware updates; plaintiffs disputed their reliability. Defendants included SanDisk LLC and two Western Digital companies.⁠[16]

Sandisk Corporation completed its separation from Western Digital on February 21, 2025 and began independent Nasdaq trading as SNDK on February 24, with David Goeckeler as CEO.⁠[17][18]

On January 5, 2026, Sandisk announced SANDISK Optimus for internal SSDs previously sold in the relevant WD Blue and WD_BLACK NVMe ranges. The three tiers—Optimus, Optimus GX and Optimus GX PRO—address differing performance needs among creators, gamers and professionals.⁠[19]

On January 29, 2026, Flash Partners and Flash Alliance were extended through 2034, aligning with Flash Forward. Sandisk owns 49.9% of each joint venture with Kioxia; flash-wafer production is located at Japan’s Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants.⁠[20]

A ruling filed May 6, 2026 certified California and Florida classes for certain claims, while denying nationwide, New York and injunctive classes. This procedural ruling did not determine final liability or damages.⁠[16]

Kioxia and Sandisk announced tenth-generation 3D-flash production at Kitakami Fab 2 in Iwate, Japan on July 3, 2026. The facility opened in September 2025 and had produced eighth-generation devices. These generations use CBA technology, bonding separately manufactured CMOS and memory-array wafers.⁠[21][22]

On July 13, the court denied a renewed, narrower injunction-class request in the SSD case. The proposed class still included people whose usage would not trigger the issue or who already knew how to resolve it. The court noted that firmware updates worked for many drives, without guaranteeing every product’s reliability.⁠[23]

On August 3, Sandisk and SK hynix announced an Open Compute Project specification for High Bandwidth Flash, covering host interfaces, packaging, reliability and read/write operations for AI-inference systems. Google and Tenstorrent joined the consortium. Publication marked standards development rather than demonstrating mass commercial deployment.⁠[24]

Results announced August 5 showed fiscal 2026 revenue of $20.248 billion, up 175%, and GAAP net income of $11.433 billion, compared with a $1.641 billion loss a year earlier. The year ended July 3. The company attributed growth to higher pricing and a shift toward higher-value customers.⁠[17]

On August 12, Kioxia and Sandisk unveiled ninth-generation 2Tb QLC 3D-flash technology combining newer CMOS circuitry with an existing memory-array platform. Its stated 4.8Gb/s NAND-interface speed came from specified test conditions and is not equivalent to whole-SSD file-transfer performance.⁠[22]

On August 27, Kioxia and Sandisk announced planned joint investment exceeding $31 billion in Japan through 2032, covering Yokkaichi, Kitakami and related infrastructure and technology, contingent on government support. The figure represents future joint investment, not completed Sandisk-only spending.⁠[25]

Headquartered in Milpitas, California, the company had approximately 11,100 employees in July 2026. Its current website lists David Goeckeler as chairman and CEO, Luis Visoso as CFO and Alper Ilkbahar as CTO. Disclosed risks include volatile flash pricing and demand, product defects and dependence on manufacturing partners.⁠[20][26]

SanDisk: Official website: https://www.sandisk.com/ (opens in a new window); Investor relations: https://investor.sandisk.com/ (opens in a new window); X: https://x.com/sandisk (opens in a new window); LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sandisk (opens in a new window); YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: https://www.youtube.com/@SandiskCorp (opens in a new window).⁠[26][27][1][28]