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Tegra 4 reference tablets use SanDisk iNAND Extreme, mate a fast CPU with fast storage

It's well established that NVIDIA's Tegra 4 is at least reasonably quick. It's only quick when the storage isn't a bottleneck, however, which is why SanDisk has negotiated a repeat partnership as the official storage supplier for reference Tegra 4 tablets. Pop open one of the designs and you'll find either 16GB or 32GB of SanDisk's iNAND Extreme keeping pace with the quad-core processor. The reference deal may be more than just a publicity grab: it raises the chance that companies will use the speedier flash memory in their own Tegra 4 slates. Whether or not SanDisk makes it to shipping devices, the deal could lead to balanced tablet hardware that seldom leaves us waiting.

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SanDisk iNAND Extreme Optimized to Provide 'Extreme' Speed and Responsiveness for Next-Generation Tablets

MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2013, Barcelona, February 25, 2013 – SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, today announced that the iNAND Extreme™ Embedded Flash Drive (EFD) supports tablet reference designs based on the NVIDIA® Tegra® 4 – the world's fastest mobile processor1. Optimized for use in the tablets powered by Tegra 4, iNAND Extreme delivers an outstanding user experience by enhancing processing performance and providing reliable, high-quality digital storage.

Tegra 4-based tablet reference designs offer a technical "recipe" for mobile device developers using the new mobile processor from NVIDIA, significantly accelerating the process of developing powerful new tablets.

With tens of millions of mobile applications downloaded every day worldwide2, smartphones and tablets are increasingly an essential part of today's smart digital lifestyle. The demand for mobile platforms with more computing capability, responsiveness and reliability continues to skyrocket.

"We knew we needed to offer an outstanding SanDisk flash memory storage solution to match up to NVIDIA's impressive Tegra 4 processor," said Drew Henry, senior vice president, OEM marketing, SanDisk. "Our iNAND Extreme product provides tremendous storage performance and high reliability to the NVIDIA Tegra 4 platform, drawing on SanDisk's 25-year legacy of enabling the industry's most innovative digital devices."

Incorporating 72 custom NVIDIA GeForce GPU cores and the first quad-core ARM Cortex-A15 CPU, Tegra 4 delivers record-level performance, outstanding graphics, and great battery life to mobile devices. Featuring an advanced controller, the iNAND Extreme EFD dramatically enhances the sequential and random performance for applications running on Tegra 4, enabling users to load web pages faster, launch and enjoy applications at blazing fast speeds, and store more digital content. For shutterbugs, iNAND Extreme improves photography application performance on mobile devices with Tegra 4, allowing even quicker multi-shot and faster image capture and store. The innovative iNAND Extreme EFD is included in Tegra 4 tablet reference designs in capacities ranging from 16GB to 32GB3.

"By pairing Tegra 4 with the iNAND Extreme, smartphone and tablet makers can create faster, quicker mobile devices with an even better consumer experience," said Phil Carmack, senior vice president, mobile business unit, NVIDIA.

iNAND Extreme is built on SanDisk's 19 nanometer (nm) process technology, the world's most advanced semiconductor manufacturing process4, and is designed for use in next-generation tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices. iNAND Extreme significantly improves multimedia synchronization speeds, file-transfer rates, and operating-system responsiveness.