Intel Flashes Forward

SAN FRANCISCO -- Intel(INTC Quote) will put NAND flash chips into notebook PCs beginning next year.

The Santa Clara, Calif., chipmaker said Tuesday that the NAND flash feature in its forthcoming notebook platform, dubbed Santa Rosa, would offer the main benefit of decreasing the time it takes to turn on a PC.

"We need to have devices that boot up very rapidly," Sean Maloney, the head of Intel's mobility group, said at the Intel Developer Forum taking place here this week. "The same way you come off a plane and get a cell phone signal immediately."

The news comes roughly three months after Intel announced that it was forming a joint venture with Micron(MU Quote) to produce NAND flash chips. The joint venture's first announced customer was Apple(AAPL Quote), which will purchase $500 million worth of NAND chips to go into its iPod players. ...