Profile: OCZ Technology Group Inc (OCZ.O)

OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (OCZ) designs, manufactures, and distributes solid-state drives (SSDs) and computer components. OCZ designs and manufactures SSDs in a variety of form factors and interfaces including Serial advanced technology attachment (SATA), serial-attached small computer system interface (SAS), peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe), as well as the development of flash management software, caching and virtualization software. The Company is also a provider of flash controller silicon and firmware for SSDs. In addition to SSD technology, OCZ offers power management products. The Company focuses on two markets: hard disk drive (HDD) replacement format market and storage area network (SAN) acceleration/replacement market. On January 9, 2012, the Company acquired Sanrad Inc. On October 24, 2011, it completed the acquisition of certain assets from PLX Technology, Inc. On March 25, 2011, it completed the acquisition of 100% interests of Indilinx Co., Ltd.

Within both the HDD and SAN markets, the Company offers a range of SSD products for enterprise customers, primarily used for data centers, cloud computing, enterprise computing devices and storage area networks. The Company sells its SSDs and components directly to enterprise customers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), through its direct sales force, and to other end customers through a channel of systems integrators, information technology (IT), integrators, and fulfillment and retail distributors, including online retailers that are focused on technology. As of February 29, 2012, it had over 400 customers, most of which are distributors or retailers in 60 countries. In addition to its SSD product line, the Company designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes other components for computing devices and systems including alternating current / direct current (AC/DC) switching power supplies. OCZ’s SSD products are assembled and tested in its manufacturing facility in Taiwan. The Company also use other contract-manufacturing suppliers in both the United States and Taiwan to support both its SSD and power supply business.

Solid State Drives

The Company’s SSD products are primarily used in personal computers (PCs), servers, data storage systems and industrial equipment. OCZ’s multi-level cell (MLC)-based drives are used in consumer, mobile computing, PCs, high performance computer (HPC), workstations, servers, enterprise and cloud computing applications, and are available in a variety of interfaces, such as SATA II, SATA III, PCIe, SAS, mini-SATA (mSATA) and its high speed data link (HSDL). These drives feature read/write speeds up to 6.5 gigabyte/ second (GB/s) and up to 16 terabyte (TB) of storage density. Its single-level cell memory (SLC)-based drives are primarily used in enterprise, HPC, servers, workstations, storage area networks, data centers and cloud computing applications, and support a variety of interfaces, such as SATA II, SATA III, PCIe, and SAS. These drives feature low power consumption, read/write speeds up to 2.8 GB/s, lower latency, enhanced endurance/reliability and up to 1.6 TB of storage density.

The Company’s portable SSD and universal serial bus (USB) drives support USB 2.0 and USB 3.0, which are used for mobile computing and PCs. The Company offers PCIe interface for the HDD replacement format and SAN acceleration/replacement markets. Its PCIe drives offers up to 500,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) for four kilobyte (KB) random write. Its SATA drives offers up to 90,000 IOPS for four KB random write. It offers SAS interface primarily for enterprise and server clients. The Company’s SAS drives offer up to 70,000 IOPS for four KB random read. The Company offers a HSDL, interface for the enterprise market. Its HSDL drives offer up to 250,000 IOPS for four KB random write.

Controllers

The Company’s Indilinx-based products and solutions consists of SSD controllers, SSD reference designs, and software. Ndurance 2.0, is a Indilinx flash management technology. Its SATA platforms support sup to 6 gigabits per second (Gbps), a maximum capacity of one TB.

Flash Caching and Virtualization Technology

The Company’s VXL software delivers flash caching and virtualization technology into server virtualization platforms. VXL runs on VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Xen-based hypervisors.

Power Supplies

The Company manufactures power supplies that are designed to power PCs and industrial devices. Power supplies are sold under both the OCZ and PC Power & Cooling brands. The Company offers high wattage power supplies with density up to 1200 watts. It offers low noise power supplies with density up to 750 watts. It offers modular power supply units (PSUs) with density up to 1000 watts.

The OCZ Solution

The Company’s virtualized controller architecture (VCA) and firmware incorporates technology and design to pool resources to create a super controller. Its VCA is supports a range of interfaces.

The Company’s Z-Drive R4 enterprise SSD, launched in August 2011, offers 2.8GB/s bandwidth. Its Z-Drive R4 is a multi-controller PCIe solution that incorporates its VCA 2.0 firmware technology.

The Company competes with Intel Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Fusion-io, Inc., SanDisk Corporation, Micron Technology, Inc. (Crucial), SMART Modular Technologies Inc., STEC, Inc., Antec, Inc., Thermaltake Technology Inc. USA, Enermax Technology Corporation, EMC Corporation Hitachi, Ltd., Seagate Technology, Toshiba, Western Digital, LSI Corporation, Infineon Technologies AG, A-DATA Technology Co., Ltd. and GSkill International Enterprise.