85 Percent of Ultrabooks Integrate SSDs by End of 2012

Ultrabooks are clearly shaping up as the PC form factor SSD makers have been waiting for.

A new report projects SSDs to hit 85 percent market share in this class of devices by the end of the year.

DRAMeXChange forecasts that the high penetration rate will fuel SSDs sales and drive the market up by 60 percent to about $3 billion in 2012. According to the report, SSDs are not likely to be only mass storage device in ultrabooks, but will be integrated as hybrid storage solutions to enable lower price points. The main use of SSDs will come as boot drives in the form of 24 GB and 32 GB SSDs, while the traditional hard drive will be employed as mass storage device.

Despite growing industry concern of price erosion in the NAND flash industry, it appears that supply and demand has come into a more reasonable balance lately as the market has seen price stabilization and even a slight uptick lately. The spot market in Taiwan is currently at $4.40 for a 64 Gb chip, at $2.61 for a 32 Gb chip and at $1.86 for a 16 Gb chip.

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