STEC

[Terliso]

SimpleTech Announces the Single Chip Drive, a Break-Through Solid-State Storage Solution for Embedded and Industrial Applications
Thursday November 16, 1:30 am ET
A Small Form Factor, Cost-Effective Solid State Storage Solution Soldered-Down for Extreme Reliability

MUNICH, Germany, Nov. 16, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- SimpleTech, Inc. (NASDAQ:STEC - News), today announced the Single Chip Drive, a true plug-and-play, solid-state flash drive in a small form factor. The Single Chip Drive combines a standard IDE or USB interface with the latest Single Level Cell NAND Flash technology in a 50-ball BGA package, making it ideal for designers who are seeking high reliability, short design cycles, ease of integration and fast time to market. SimpleTech's patented IC Tower(r) Stacking Technology enables the Single Chip Drive to reach the highest capacity in the industry in this small form factor, with capacities ranging from 128MB to 4GB. SimpleTech will showcase the new Single Chip Drive at the Electronica 2006 conference, Nov 14-17, 2006 at New Munich Trade Fair Center in Munich (Hall 6, Stand 754).
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Customers that have traditionally been using Compact Flash, due to its ease-of-integration and standard IDE interface, now have an alternative solution. If there is no true need for a removable storage device, the Single Chip Drive can lower the bill of material cost and the manufacturing cost, as designers can remove the CF connector from their board, thereby reducing board real estate, material cost and costly manufacturing steps. By providing the Single Chip Drive in both IDE and USB interface, designers have additional flexibility to choose the interface that best suits their design.

The Single Chip Drive incorporates a high performance Flash controller IC which ensures optimal reliability. There are many potential problems associated with embedded use of NAND flash, such as reliability, endurance, and data retention. All of these potential design issues related to NAND flash integration are addressed by the advanced flash management software that is integrated in the Single Chip Drive. As a result, the product is ideal for numerous applications, particularly those demanding high reliability, lower cost, and mobility. The product is currently deployed within automotive location devices, networking equipment, point-of-sale terminals, as well as many other applications.

``Our customers are constantly looking for innovative ways to implement high reliability memory and storage solutions while reducing total system cost,'' said Patrick Wilkison, vice president of marketing and business development at SimpleTech. ``The Single Chip Drive reflects our continued commitment to meeting the evolving needs of our customers by providing reliable flash solutions with optimized cost structures.''

Reliability and Endurance

SimpleTech incorporates state-of-the-art flash memory controller technology in the Single Chip Drive, providing high data reliability and endurance. The built-in ECC engine can detect up to 5-byte errors and correct up to 4-byte errors, while sophisticated wear leveling algorithms guarantee 2,000,000 Write/Erase Cycles. All Single Chip Drive products are made in the United States at SimpleTech's ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certified manufacturing facility.

Form Factor

Single Chip Drive is available in a 50-ball package and is available with either a single flash device, or two stacked flash devices by using SimpleTech's patented IC Tower(r) Stacking Technology. The USB Single Chip Drive is available in a 12mm x 21mm x 3mm package (5.0mm for stacked package); the IDE Single Chip Drive is offered in a 21mm x 19mm x 3mm package (4.8mm for stacked package).

Service and Warranty

SimpleTech ensures long-term product availability and non-obsolescence. All Single Chip Drives carry a standard five year warranty. Extended warranties are also available.

Pricing and Availability

Single Chip Drive is available today in Engineering Samples in capacities up to 4GB, with mass production planned for January 2007. OEM pricing is available upon request. Sales information is available at http://www.simpletech.com/oem/, via email at [email protected] or by calling (949) 476-1180.

[Terliso]

Bouncing MACD Historgram

[Terliso]

Looks like the $11.53 all-time high will be a history soon for STEC




Monday December 4
SimpleTech Boosts 4Q Guidance

SimpleTech Raises 4th-Quarter Outlook, Stock Up in Premarket Trading

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- SimpleTech Inc., a maker of memory chips and modules, raised its fourth-quarter outlook Monday, sending shares up almost 10 percent in premarket trading.

The company said it expects to report earnings of 17 cents to 18 cents per share, on sales of $105 million to $107 million, for the final quarter of 2006. SimpleTech's earlier guidance was for earnings of 15 cents to 16 cents per share on sales of $95 million to $100 million

Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 15 cents per share on sales of $97.7 million, according to a poll by Thomson Financial.

SimpleTech said both its consumer and original equipment manufacturer divisions are performing more strongly than expected.

Shares rose 86 cents, or 9.8 percent, to $9.64 in premarket trading.

[Terliso]

Breakaway gap again for STEC

[Terliso]

It's Simple: There's Big Profit Growth In Hard Drives On Chips
Wednesday December 13, 7:00 pm ET
Brian Womack

SimpleTech made a simple bet. And the right one.

The memory products maker has proved that there's a fast-growing market for storage drives that industry behemoth SanDisk abandoned two years ago.

In the second quarter, SimpleTech started posting huge growth numbers, largely on the strength of the new storage drives. The drives use flash memory chips -- typically used in consumer gadgets -- to replace some traditional hard drives.


In the third quarter, sales jumped 38% and earnings grew 250%. Earlier this month the company raised forecasts for the fourth quarter.

"We stuck it out," said Manouch Moshayedi, chief executive and co-founder of SimpleTech. "(It's) finally come to fruition."

SimpleTech is beefing up with more engineers, cheaper manufacturing and acquisitions. It serves networking gear and military customers, among others.

Sans SanDisk

And with SanDisk out of the picture, SimpleTech is the last major player standing. Its market could double a couple of times in the next several years, analysts say. For now, the market remains too small to get SanDisk interested again.

"There are few competitors," said Daniel Gelbtuch, an analyst with CIBC World Markets. "SimpleTech is the last guy holding the bag."

Salomon Kamalodine, an analyst with B. Riley & Co., says competitors would need 18 months to two years to catch up.

"SimpleTech, from a competitive standpoint, is golden," Kamalodine said. "They're going to maintain their pricing power. They're going to have the first mover (advantage)."

Price is the key driver. The cost of basic flash memory chips fell by 40% a year for several years. That drove down prices for the storage drives.

SimpleTech built its reputation on high-end designs of DRAM (dynamic random access memory) modules, or the chip-based memory products that go into computers. It bought raw chips from manufactures and combined them into modules.

Flash also is a chip-based memory product popular for consumer devices such as digital music players and cell phones. SimpleTech sells consumer-focused flash memory products.

SimpleTech also found a new growth story with industrial customers. The company uses scads of flash chips to make "solid-state drives." Observers say the drives are more durable and faster than traditional hard drives.

Solid-state drives play into SimpleTech's preference for smaller but less competitive and more profitable businesses. Solid-state drives deliver margins of 50% or more. Consumer flash delivers 12%.

"The most successful companies in the world know their limitations," Moshayedi said. "We know our limitations. We are who we are. We are not building the semiconductors."

SimpleTech's secret recipe is a chip it developed to wring more out of flash. Flash for data storage can handle 5,000 to possibly 100,000 read-write cycles (or basic one-time uses). That's fine for an iPod, but not enough for a heavy industrial application.

SimpleTech's devices enable flash to handle 1 million-plus read-write cycles. The controllers act as a sort of traffic cop. They help direct bits of data to the flash memory chips for storage and retrieval.

With improvements, the drives could last a decade before they wear out. Besides a long life, industrial flash drives are more durable than hard drives, analysts say. Traditional hard drives have moving parts, including a spinning wheel, unlike chips.

The military has been a major customer. Tanks and planes need storage devices that are more durable than a hard drive. "A spinning hard drive cannot handle G-forces or a sudden bump," Gelbtuch said.

Roughly 40% of solid-state drive customers are networking gear companies, including Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO - News) and Nortel Networks (NYSE:NT - News).

They use the smaller flash drives to speed data transmission, and the devices last longer, Moshayedi said.

Another opportunity is the use of flash drives for laptops and enterprise-level servers.

Moshayedi says the flash drives can cut down on bottlenecks and speed transmission. That could be helpful to big Web companies trying to slash download times. Also, engineering firms and banks could use the speedier server performance.

In October, SimpleTech closed on the purchase of Gnutek, which had developed a solid-state drive for the enterprise market. SimpleTech could have developed the same product, but not for several more months.

"If the technology makes sense, we go after it," Moshayedi said. "The technology here makes sense."

Laptops could be a trickier market for SimpleTech. Solid-state drives are set to nose-dive in cost next year -- and down the road, flash makers could jump into an industry as large as the PC market.

That could lead to commoditization, but Moshayedi sees opportunities for customers who want the sturdiest of hard drives.

"We feel that the the professional-level customer -- they need the higher-end product," he said.

Today, the market for industrial flash is just $300 million annually, but the company says it can go to as much as $3 billion by 2011.

Not So Fast

Gelbtuch isn't so sure. He would consider even $800 million to $1 billion extremely fast growth.

The analyst estimates the company has $100 million annually in sales with industrial flash, and should grab more as old contracts expire.

He sees a threat to the company's growth from slowing military sales if a Democrat wins the White House.

SimpleTech said earlier this year that it will expand its global reach with an assembly and engineering center planned for lower-cost Malaysia.

The company negotiated a deal to pay zero taxes for the next 15 years, compared with the 37% to 38% rate it pays on its U.S. sites.

Copyright 2006 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.

[Terliso]

Looks like the $11.53 all-time high will be a history soon for STEC

There you go, STEC hit all-time high

[HANDBALLJIM]

Hey Terliso,

Do think it is too late to get in this one? Flash memory cards are in demand...but I did notice they went down in price a lot. The price of a large memory card now...is the same price as a small memory card was 2 years ago...and the small ones are dirt cheap now.

Short term chart looks good...but 6 year chart shows resistance just below this area. We did get nice volume ever since it started moving up mid July though.

Thanks, Jimmy

[kpunarc]

I've been in it since around $10.00 and caught the breakout mid-way. It was on my watchlist for a while. I personally don't think it's too late and believe it's forming another base before another breakout...

[Terliso]

STEC #10 stock for 2006

STEC #10 stock for 2006

STEC #10 stock for 2006

[setravis]

SimpleTech's Deal with Apple Expected to
Potentially Add Major OEMs in Flash Memory
SimpleTech, Incorporated (STEC) was up 11.63% following analyst
firm B. Riley & Company's upgrade of the stock from Neutral to Buy,
targeting a 105.26% increase of its current price to $19.50. Riley & Co.
said STEC is displacing Samsung Corp. at Apple Inc. and is on track
to begin shipping drives onto the MacBook Air beginning in the third
quarter. "We anticipate this win to add further momentum to STEC's
flash business and believe that the company could win as many as
two top notebook original equipment manufacturers during this calendar,
as well as two incremental server OEMs before the first half of
2009," the brokerage said. The company is well positioned for this, as
over the past several years, it has expanded its custom design capabilities
of Flash products for OEM applications, investing significantly
in the design and development of customized OEM Flash controllers,
firmware and hardware. Key acquisitions include Memtech SSD, the
logic division of Integrated Circuit Solution Incorporation, and the assets
of Gnutek Ltd. These acquisitions have enabled the company to offer
products that address the enterprise storage and video-on-demand
market's rapidly increasing need for high throughput Flash-based drive
solutions. Since the beginning of 2004, Simpletech has opened sales,
marketing, procurement and engineering offices in Austria, Germany,
Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and the United Kingdom in
order to build the necessary infrastructure to support product development
and revenue growth in those respective geographic regions. It has
also completed construction of a 210,000 square foot manufacturing
facility in Malaysia that, over time, is expected to serve as a major hub
for our international operational activities including manufacturing, sales
and marketing, procurement and logistics.

[BigSully1]

ER this morn

[REALDEALS21]

Missed the run up, great looking CHART !! 

[BigSully1]

update

[setravis]

Thread not updated in over 1 year.
See what takes place when we don't follow up. 
All our members need to come back and do some posting...we need some active posters!!!
IBD numbers are so good...Volume blast !
This stock is predicted to increase all year.
Powerful breakout! Still looking strong! Something cooking?


52wk Range: 3.42 - 21.43
Volume: 10,397,312
Avg Vol (3m): 1,256,430
Market Cap: 1.11B
P/E (ttm): 213.83
EPS (ttm): 0.11
Div & Yield: N/A (N/A)

Technicals
Record Price High
Close Below the 13-day MA
Most Actives
Gap Up
Percentage Gainer

Last Price Quote is:
26.08%above 13-day MA
64.78%above 50-day MA
RS Rating: 96 

Fundamentals
Key Data:
Market Cap (M): $907.42 
P/E Ratio: 170.35 
PEG Ratio: 0.439072 
Next Earnings: 08/10/2009
Last Analyst Rating: Overweight

[setravis]

STEC Recent highflier is hitting new highs after the data storage play raised guidance this morning.

Boosts 2nd-quarter financial outlook with better sales
On Tuesday June 16, 2009, 1:58 pm EDT

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- Memory chip maker Stec Inc. boosted its second-quarter financial outlook Tuesday, predicting better earnings and sales than expected.

The company said better sales of its ZeusIOPS solid-state drive products led to the revision.

It now expects adjusted earnings of 32 cents to 36 cents per share, compared with a previous forecast of 20 cents to 22 cents. On average, analysts were expecting 21 cents, according to a Thomson Reuters poll.

Stec projected revenue of $82 million to $84 million, up from $68 million to $70 million. Analysts were looking for $69.1 million.

The company said it had predicted its ZeusIOPS line would bring in more than $65 million in the first half of the year, but now expects it to top $80 million, with at least $55 million coming in the second quarter.

In afternoon trading, Stec shares rose $5.44, or 30 percent, to $23.46. The day's high of $23.89 was a new 52-week high.