Masuoka Fujio

Japanese engineer

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July 20, 2026

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Masuoka Fujio, a Japanese engineer working for Toshiba Corporation in the early 1980s, invented flash memory. He sought a replacement for existing data-storage media like floppy disks and DRAM chips. Flash memory is a type of EEPROM (electronically erasable programmable read-only memory) that retains data without a power source. Its name, "flash," was inspired by the ability to erase all data on a chip simultaneously, akin to a camera's flash. This technology is crucial for portable devices like smartphones and digital cameras, as well as USB drives and memory cards.12

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flash memory
…early 1980s by Japanese engineer Masuoka Fujio, who was then working at the Toshiba Corporation and who was searching for a technology that would replace existing data-storage media such as magnetic tapes, floppy disks, and dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips. The name flash was coined by Ariizumi Shoji, a coworker…
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…early 1980s by Japanese engineer Masuoka Fujio, who was then working at the Toshiba Corporation and who was searching for a technology that would replace existing data-storage media such as magnetic tapes, floppy disks, and dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips. The name flash was coined by Ariizumi Shoji, a coworker…
Read More