IRVINE, Calif., Nov. 19, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Netlist, Inc.
(NASDAQ: NLST), today announced that it has entered into a five
year Joint Development and License Agreement (the "Agreement") with
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., to produce a new class of NVDIMM-P
(NV-P) memory solutions based on Samsung's industry leading NAND
Flash and DRAM, and Netlist's pioneering work on HyperVault®. The
companies will work to create a standardized product interface to
facilitate rapid market adoption and bring the compelling benefits
of this new technology to a large group of customers in cloud
computing, big data, and server and storage markets.
Under the terms of the Agreement, which includes licensing of
each company's respective patent portfolios, Netlist will receive
$23 million, consisting of
$8 million in cash from Samsung
Electronics and $15 million in the
form of investment from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation. The
Agreement calls for additional exchange of consideration as
progress is made toward market introduction of the product. The
companies plan to sample NV-P products with select customers in
2016.
NV-P is an emerging industry standard for a new class of
NAND-based storage which operates in the memory channel, the
fastest data path in a computer. With HyperVault®, Netlist created
the industry's first unified memory-storage architecture where low
cost, high density NAND storage can achieve the performance of high
cost, high speed DRAM memory. This breakthrough patented
architecture will be combined with Samsung's industry leading DRAM
and NAND, to produce NV-P solutions that deliver cost and
performance benefits vastly superior to those of traditional
storage solutions.
"At Samsung, we are taking the lead in defining the right
standards for storage class memory with industry partners, and
creating new markets for DRAM and NAND flash memory based on the
new standards. By using a standardized hybrid storage solution, our
customers will be able to efficiently extract intelligence from
large amounts of data in storage systems," said Dr. Jung-Bae Lee, Senior Vice President of Memory
Product Planning and Application Engineering Team, Samsung
Electronics. "We are pleased to partner with Netlist, a company
with a long-history of innovative memory technology solutions and
IP, to productize and drive broad market adoption of this new
standard," he added.
"This is a transformational partnership that validates our
unique IP and provides an accelerated path for delivering NV-P to
the mainstream market. Samsung is the unparalleled leader in memory
and recognizes the value of disruptive technology in this sector,"
said C.K. Hong, President and CEO of
Netlist. "Samsung's leadership in memory and Netlist's expertise in
hybrid storage are highly complementary, and together create a
powerful platform for driving broad market adoption of this new
storage class memory solution."
"Computer architecture is going through important changes fueled
by the advent of a new memory layer based on alternative memory
types," said Jim Handy, General
Director of Objective Analysis, a leading independent research
firm. "This brings to computing a much faster kind of storage that
can harness the raw speed of the memory bus through the NVDIMM-P
memory module format. Objective Analysis projects that the
market for such modules in servers could grow to $2 billion by 2019."
NVDIMM-P is nomenclature adopted by the Storage Network Industry
Association to describe storage class memory products that combine
the functionalities of persistent DRAM and block accessed NAND
Flash, and operate in the memory channel. HyperVault®, a "superset"
of NVDIMM-P, further expands the capabilities of NAND so that they
achieve near-DRAM performance and DDR4 compatibility with no system
software modifications. NV-P solutions are expected to be initially
targeted at the fastest tiers of storage where data throughput and
latency are critical. These applications include big data
analytics, virtualization, in-memory database, online transaction
processing and high performance database.
Additional details regarding the transaction are available in
Netlist's Current Report on Form 8-K filed concurrently with the
issuance of this release.
About Netlist, Inc.
Netlist creates solutions that accelerate turning data into
information. We design and manufacture controller and
software-based memory solutions for our OEM and Hyperscale
customers in the server and storage space. Flagship products
NVvault® and EXPRESSvault™ accelerate system performance and
provide mission critical fault tolerance. HyperVault®, Netlist's
next-generation architecture, expands the performance and capacity
of memory channel storage. The company holds a portfolio of
patents, many seminal, in the area of hybrid memory, rank
multiplication and load-reduction, among others. To learn more,
visit www.netlist.com
Safe Harbor Statement:
This news release contains forward-looking statements regarding
future events and the future performance of Netlist. These
forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that
could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected
or projected. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not
limited to, risks associated with the joint development efforts
with Samsung described above; the launch and commercial success of
our products, programs and technologies; the success of product
partnerships; continuing development, qualification and volume
production of HyperVault™, EXPRESSvault™, NVvault®, HyperCloud® and
VLP Planar-X RDIMM; the timing and magnitude of the decrease in
sales to our key customer; our ability to leverage our NVvault® and
EXPRESSvault™ technology in a more diverse customer base; the
rapidly-changing nature of technology; risks associated with
intellectual property, including risks associated with the inherent
uncertainty of the litigation process, patent infringement
litigation against us as well as the costs and unpredictability of
litigation over infringement of our intellectual property and the
possibility of our patents being reexamined by the United States
Patent and Trademark office; volatility in the pricing of DRAM ICs
and NAND; changes in and uncertainty of customer acceptance of, and
demand for, our existing products and products under development,
including uncertainty of and/or delays in product orders and
product qualifications; delays in the Company's and its customers'
product releases and development; introductions of new products by
competitors; changes in end-user demand for technology solutions;
the Company's ability to attract and retain skilled personnel; the
Company's reliance on suppliers of critical components and vendors
in the supply chain; fluctuations in the market price of critical
components; evolving industry standards; and the political and
regulatory environment in the People's
Republic of China. Other risks and uncertainties are
described in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K filed on
March 27, 2015, and subsequent
filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission made by
the Company from time to time. Except as required by law, Netlist
undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any
forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise.
For more information,
please contact:
|
Investors:
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Press:
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Brainerd
Communicators, Inc.
|
Brainerd
Communicators, Inc.
|
Mike Smargiassi/Jenny
Perales
|
Sharon
Oh
|
NLST@braincomm.com
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NLST@braincomm.com
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(212)
986-6667
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(212)
986-6667
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SOURCE Netlist, Inc.