Ultrabooks to Fuel Explosive Growth in Cache SSD Shipments

There was no dearth of ultrabook announcements at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But it still remains to be seen whether or not all these ultrabooks can go onto capture a large chunk of the notebook market as Intel wants them to. Market research firm IHS iSuppli is among those who expect ultrabook shipments to soar rapidly over the next few years. Having previously predicted “major repercussions for the global electronics supply chain” owing to a boom in ultrabook shipments, the firm has now specifically identified cache solid state drives (SSDs) as a likely beneficiary  of such a boom.

In a price-sensitive segment like the ultrabook market, it makes sense for vendors to combine a cache SSD with a hard drive instead of going for pure solid-state storage. It’s not only affordable, but also a good way of ensuring faster boot-up times. This is one of the main reasons why IHS iSuppli expects cache SSD shipments to rise dramatically to reach 25.7 million units in 2012, up from just 881,000 units in 2011. But it’s not that ultrabooks alone are expected to account for all the growth in cache SSD shipments, with the research firm predicting the shipment of over 3 million units ship inside standard notebooks and desktop PCs. Its outlook for cache SSDs over the next four years is similarly rosy.

“Intel is continuing to put its eggs into the ultrabook basket, as indicated by its activities at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week,” said Ryan Chien, research associate for memory & storage at IHS. “From the company’s introduction of the Nikiski reference design, to its announcement that more than 60 additional ultrabook designs will enter the market in time for the 2012 holiday season, Intel at CES showed that Ultrabooks have become the centerpiece of its mobile computing strategy. Cache SSDs represent a key part of Intel’s Ultrabook specification, providing performance, convenience and power-savings capabilities that play a key role in defining the platform.”

Image Credit: IHS iSuppli Research