Increasing HD video content, social networking, shared data via the cloud, low power consumption and instant-on features continue to drive growth of devices that use NAND flash memory. While applications are many, smartphones, tablets and solid-state drives (SSDs) are forecast to be among the biggest users of NAND flash in 2013, according to IC Insights.

The market for NAND flash memory is forecast to reach US$30 billion in 2013, up about 12% from US$26.8 billion in 2012. Smartphones will account for 26% of the 2013 market, followed by SSDs with 13% and tablets with 12%, IC Insights said.

IC Insights expects approximately 56% of total handset shipments in 2013 to be smartphones, compared to 42% in 2012 and 30% in 2011. "This is significant because smartphones contain as much as 9x more NAND flash than a basic or enhanced cellphone," the research firm noted.

Another high-volume application for the 2013 NAND flash market is SSDs, which are built with high-density NAND flash chips and feature standard mass-storage interfaces found on hard-disk drives (HDD), IC Insights indicated. SSDs are built in form-factor sizes that are identical to HDDs, such as 1.8- and 2.5-inch modules, so they can be easily plugged into existing PC and notebook designs. In recent years, SSD-storage capacity has quadrupled annually, and now it appears that the drives are becoming serious challengers to conventional hard-disk storage in portable computers.

Recently, SSD-storage solutions have gained favor in large server computers, which stand to benefit from the faster read/write speeds of flash-memory-built drives as well as reduced power consumption, IC Insights pointed out. Notebooks, installed car navigation systems, industrial equipment, and digital video recorders (DVRs) are a few additional applications that are being targeted for SSDs, IC Insights added.

Being the fastest growing segment of the PC market, tablets are also expected to be a significant consumer of NAND flash in 2013, IC Insights observed. Shipments of tablets including the Apple iPad series came to 117 million units in 2012, almost double the 65 million shipped in 2011. Shipments will climb further to reach 167 million units in 2013, said IC Insights, adding that leading tablets typically feature 16GB of NAND flash as a starting point.