In a bid to strengthen its portfolio of exclusive technologies and improve its products with new unique capabilities, Apple has reportedly acquired Anobit, a well-known designer of advanced endurance technologies for NAND flash multi-level cell (MLC) and TLC (three bits-per-cell) memory. The move will help Apple to improve reliability and optimize costs of its devices that use flash storage, including MacBook laptips with solid-state drives as well as iOS-powered devices.

Based in Herzeliya Pituach, Israel, Anobit is a provider of NAND flash-based solutions. Its patented MSP (Memory Signal Processing) technology significantly improves the endurance of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash to up to 50 thousand write cycles per bit and thus the cost structure of flash-based products and systems. Anobit’s products, ranging from flash controllers to enterprise-class solid state drives, are designed for leading NAND flash manufacturers, consumer electronics vendors and storage solution providers.

Anobit's MSP-powered MSP2000-series embedded flash controllers are among the industry's highest performance embedded flash controllers for smartphones and tablets, supporting sub-20nm MLC (two bits-per-cell) and TLC (three bits-per-cell) NAND flash. For example, Anobit MSP2025 embedded flash controller supports up to 666MB/s data transfer rate, up to 256GB/16 dies of NAND flash, dual host interface and features very low power consumption. Anobit's MSP2025 embedded flash controller servers as a mediator controller between a host and NAND flash memory devices.

Neither Anobit, nor Apple have issued formal statements about the acquisition and did not comment on the news-story. However, Israeli-based Calcalist financial daily said that Anobit has been acquired for a sum between $400 and $500 million, according to Reuters news-agency.

Anobit will become a part of Apple and will also be one of the company's first research and development facilities outside the U.S. It is noteworthy that Apple's rivals Intel Corp. and Samsung Electronics have invested in Anobit previously and currently it is uncertain whether they have any rights on Anobit's patents.

Tags: Anobit, Apple, NAND, Flash, MLC, TLC, Samsung, Intel