| SANDISK AND TOSHIBA FINALIZE CONSOLIDATION OF THEIR FLASHVISION MANUFACTURING AT TOSHIBA'S YOKKAICHI, JAPAN MEMORY FAB SUNNYVALE, CA, APRIL 12, 2002 - SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) announced today that it has formally concluded the agreements with Toshiba Corporation related to the relocation of their joint FlashVision venture from the Dominion Semiconductor facility in Manassas, VA, to Toshiba's semiconductor plant at Yokkaichi, Japan. The two companies announced in December, 2001, that they had signed a binding Memorandum Of Understanding to consolidate their advanced NAND flash wafer fab manufacturing operations at Toshiba's memory fab at Yokkaichi.
Sanjay Mehrotra, SanDisk's chief operating officer and executive vice president, said, "We believe that with this manufacturing consolidation, the two companies can achieve a more competitive cost per wafer, begin to increase production capacity and accelerate the time to market for volume production of our next generation 0.13 micron NAND flash. The relocation of our FlashVision venture to Yokkaichi underscores the strong partnership that exists between Toshiba and SanDisk."
He added, "Both Toshiba and SanDisk plan to use the increased output from the Yokkaichi fab to meet increasing demand."
Both companies expect to start production at FlashVision Japan in the third quarter, 2002. Production ramp up is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2003. Toshiba has already been manufacturing 0.16 micron NAND flash wafers at the Yokkaichi facility for supporting SanDisk and Toshiba production requirements during FlashVision's period of transfer from Dominion to Yokkaichi and subsequent production ramp up of FlashVision Japan. The consolidation of manufacturing at Yokkaichi, Japan is expected to streamline the transfer of new technologies and thereby accelerate the volume production of highly cost competitive NAND/MLC (multi-level cell) as well as the 0.13 micron NAND flash memory technologies.
SanDisk, the world's largest supplier of flash data storage products, designs, manufactures and markets industry-standard, solid-state data, digital imaging and audio storage products using its patented, high density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is based in Sunnyvale, CA.
The matters discussed in this news release contain forward looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties as described under the caption, "Factors That May Affect Future Results" in the company's annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The companies assume no obligation to update the information in this release.
SanDisk's web site/home page address: http://www.sandisk.com
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