From the sizzling market for anything iPod, to new, more powerful hand-held computers, PDAs, music players, digital cameras and cellular telephones, flash memory - and increasingly higher-capacity versions of the tiny silicon wafers - is revitalizing the semiconductor industry.

"This is going to remain a really interesting market," says Kip Meacham, an iPod owner and Orem marketing consultant. "And whatever happens, the consumers are going to come out on top - what a rush!"

The flash fascination is especially good news for Utah, where global demand for NAND - the highest-density memory storage media made - has Micron Technology Inc. dusting off plans for its long-mothballed, $700 million, 2,100-acre microchip production plan in Lehi.

Originally planned for 6,000 employees laboring in 12 buildings along Utah County's Traverse Ridge, the sluggish market for former mainstream DRAM-style memory chips had kept Micron to a plant staff of 500 product testers in one building.

"We're working for flash [memory] technologies in Lehi to be up and running and producing in early 2007," says Micron spokesman Dan Francisco. "We're already projecting this year that NAND will account for about 15 percent of our overall production" at other company facilities.

Adds Celeste Crystal, a senior semiconductor analyst for IDC Research: "Absolutely, this is a hot, rapidly growing market. . . . Flash memory is ideal [as a] small, lightweight, lower-power consumption memory device ideal for our new applications."

Consider this: In the space of one year, sales of NAND flash rose 36 percent, from $6.6 billion in 2004 to more than $10.8 billion last year. Industry researcher iSuppli projects 2006 NAND receipts at nearly $17 billion, and nearly $23 billion next year.

Boise-based Micron, the world's No. 2 memory chip maker behind Samsung Semiconductor, will acknowledge only plans for "hundreds" of new jobs coming to its Lehi plant in 2007, but won't rule out persistent rumors that new hires could top 3,000, depending on market factors present next year.

Actually, Micron already has begun to quietly recruit for a new Lehi work force. Last week, under the name of Micron's new NAND-making entity, IM Flash Technologies, the company posted nearly 50 Lehi job openings, ranging from management and human resources personnel to hardware and software engineers, accountants and computer maintenance workers.

Analysts, watching NAND sales figures soar beyond even their earlier optimistic projections, see the Lehi plant as critical to the company grabbing and keeping its share of the burgeoning market.

"For Micron, addressing the fastest-growing market segment [in technology] is the right thing to do," says Nam Hyung Kim, a semiconductor expert at iSuppli. "Micron can definitely leverage its existing [chip production machinery] to produce NAND flash."

Ramping up operations at the Lehi plant, still boasting cutting-edge chip-making technology, will help keep costs and logistical headaches down. Those factors will be key for Micron proving it can "compete with Samsung [and others as] very cost-efficient memory suppliers," Nam adds.

Micron plunged into the fray last November, signing on to a joint, $500 million deal with Intel Corp. to provide flash memory for Apple's iPods. Under the agreement, Intel and Micron created IM Flash Technologies Inc., to produce solid-state, internal flash memory cards for iPod music and video players.

Apple will pay $250 million each to Intel and Micron to supply the memory. The company also reached long-term supply agreements with Hynix, Samsung Electronics and Toshiba, setting the stage for a global tug of war over future flash contracts.

Apple declined to discuss the deal beyond CEO Steve Jobs' original statement that the company was willing to prepay $1.25 billion overall for flash memory. "We want to be able to produce as many of our wildly popular iPods as the market demands," he said.

Micron CEO Steve Appleton is looking to stretch NAND well beyond its use in iPods and other hand-held gadgets. He sees a day, perhaps by the end of this decade, when flash memory will replace or supplement laptop computer hard drives.

The result would be a lighter, faster, more powerful portable computing platform that could run for 10-15 hours on battery power, compared with the two to three hours common today.

"I'm not saying [hard] drives will go away," Appleton recently told CnetNews.com. "But when was the last time you tapped out a drive? There'll always be an application for high-density [memory]."

Storage capacity, then, becomes the race for future flash sales dominance. Micron boasts the ability to produce GB (gigabyte) NAND chips, and developers look to stack those chips into modules to offer data storage matching typical hard drives within the next few years.

Micron will hardly be alone. No. 1 Samsung "is doubling the capacity of flash we offer every year," says Don Barnetson, associate director of flash marketing for the South Korean company.

Before year's end, Samsung plans to unveil 8GB and and 16GB chips, and the company has a goal of breaking the 64GB barrier by 2008.

Flash prices are dropping, especially at the lower memory ratings. For $69-$99, you can buy a 1GB USB flash drive or card, roughly 40 percent less than a few months ago.

Where will NAND chips go next? Use your imagination. As storage capacity grows, visualize broadcast video stored in multiple hour slots, rather than two to three minutes common now. There would be hundreds of hours of music and cinema pre-recorded on flash cards - already available in Europe - that could be the rage in America by next Christmas.

"They could easily increase market access by making cool stuff available," says iPod owner Meacham, at 44 a prime example of digital entertainment's wide demographic appeal. "This may be just the next move to secure Apple's market dominance. . . . It's a great strategy."

A look at NAND

NAND is fast becoming the most popular form of flash memory, a rewriteable chip that holds massive amounts of data. It is termed "nonvolatile" because it keeps its information without need of a power supply.

NAND is the darling of a growing number of electronic devices, from MP3 music players, PDAs, cellular phones and digital cameras to hand-held video games. Researchers also are working on future, super-capacity NAND modules that could replace hard drives on laptop computers.

Next up: As NAND capacity expands from 4-8 gigabyte chips into double-digit GB products, so will the options for entertainment. By year's end, iPod and other hand-held users will be able to buy movies on flash chips.