Micron Decides to Kill Lexar Brand There will be no more Lexar-branded USB flash drives, SD cards, card readers or other memory products.

Lexar is a name that's always been associated with USB flash drives and memory cards. It's a brand that's been around for over two decades and always appears in search results when looking for portable storage. But it won't for much longer as parent company Micron is killing the brand.

Lexar started life in 1996 when it was spun off from Cirrus Logic and is based in Milipitas, a city in Santa Clara County, Calif. As well as the Lexar name itself being well-known, the company owns the very popular JumpDrive trademark associated with its USB flash drives.

A year before being acquired by Micron Technology in 2006, Lexar won a lawsuit against Toshiba who had copied its flash memory technology. Compensation from that case amounted to $380 million. Do a search for Lexar today and you'll still find a wide-range of flash drives, SD cards and CompactFlash cards. Many of these are now presented under the Lexar Professional name.

As to why Micron decided to kill the brand, Jay Hawkins, consumer products group vice president at Micron Technology, explains in a blog post that, "The decision was made as part of the company's ongoing efforts to focus on its increasing opportunities in higher value markets and channels."

Existing Lexar customer will continue to receive support for the products they have purchased, but we shoudln't expect to see any new Lexar products appearing or new stock of existing lines shipped. However, this may not be the end of the Lexar name. Micron is making it clear they are open to selling all or part of the Lexar business.