With new orders flowing in and the company's planned process upgrade, memory controller IC supplier JMicron Technology expects sales of its products for solid-state drives (SSD) to double in 2012, according to company CEO Tim Liu.

Liu is confident that JMicron's second-generation controller for SSDs will be a revenue growth driver for the company this year. JMicron shipped about two million SSD-use controllers in 2011. With the new generation having drawn interest from a number of international brands, shipments for 2012 are set to top four million units, Liu said.

In addition, JMicron plans to transition its production process to a newer 55nm node, Liu indicated. Sampling will start in July with volume production scheduled for as early as September, Liu said.

JMicron reportedly has landed orders from Toshiba and Kingston Technology. JMicron's controller chips will be used in the vendors' SSDs with capacities ranging between 64GB and 128GB, and are built using 0.13-micron process technology. Earlier, JMicron had cut into the supply chain for Lenovo's ultrabooks with its SSD controllers, according to industry sources.

JMicron along with Phison Electronics are the only two Taiwan-based firms able to compete in the SSD controller market dominated by larger international peers such as Marvell, and LSI which acquired SandForce, market watchers noted.

USB 3.0 device controllers are the other area JMicron has been focusing. JMicron is currently supplying USB 3.0 bridge controller chips to Western Digital (WD) and Seagate, with order visibility through September.

In other news, Kingston is using LSI's solutions for high-end SSDs and JMicron's for mainstream parts, industry sources quoted the module vendor's product roadmap as saying.