Intel Prepares Flash Attack

Of course, companies like SanDisk are also racing to deliver MLC-based flash drives. And it is unclear how close Intel's MLC technology is to being ready for prime time.

Grimsrud said he was not ready to announce release dates for Intel's solid state drives, describing them more as initiatives than commercial products at this point.

On Tuesday, however, Senior Vice President Patrick Gelsinger announced another solid state drive intended for corporate servers, which he said will be available in 2008. The server version of the solid state drive will use SLC technology, which is considered more reliable than MLC.

"We believe this will revolutionize storage in the data center of tomorrow," Gelsinger said.

Until now, Intel's NAND flash memory efforts have primarily focused on integrating the chips onto a PC's motherboard -- something Intel calls TurboMemory -- as a means of providing a speed boost for everyday computing tasks. Adoption of that technology has lagged, however, as some PC makers contend it does not offer sufficient performance benefit to justify the extra price.

Shares of Intel finished Wednesday's regular session up 27 cents at $25.68.