Apple wants to make darn sure they stay king of the DAP market

and do that, they’ve plunked down $1.2 billion dollars for some prime flash memory. Don’t worry, with this deal, there’ll be plenty of nano’s and shuffle’s to stuff into every Christmas stocking this December!

Apple said it would make the payment over the next three months in a series of agreements to lock up NAND flash memory supply through 2010 with five leading manufacturers: Hynix Semiconductor Inc. (000660.KS: Quote, Profile, Research), Intel Corp. (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research), Micron Technology Inc. (MU.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (005930.KS: Quote, Profile, Research) and Toshiba Corp. (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research). [Source]

[tags]apple,nano,ipod,flash memory,shuffle,nand[/tags]