Flash memory (both NOR and NAND types) was invented by Dr. Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba circa 1980.[2][3] According to Toshiba, the name "flash" was suggested by Dr. Masuoka's colleague, Mr. Shōji Ariizumi, because the erasure process of the memory contents reminded him of the flash of a camera. Dr. Masuoka presented the invention at the IEEE 1984 International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) held in San Francisco.

Intel Corporation saw the massive potential of the invention and introduced the first commercial NOR type flash chip in 1988.[4] NOR-based flash has long erase and write times, but provides full address and data buses, allowing random access to any memory location. This makes it a suitable replacement for older read-only memory (ROM) chips, which are used to store program code that rarely needs to be updated, such as a computer's BIOS or the firmware of set-top boxes. Its endurance may be from as little as 100 erase cycles for an on-chip flash memory,[5] to a more typical 10,000 or 100,000 erase cycles, up to 1,000,000 erase cycles.[6] NOR-based flash was the basis of early flash-based removable media; CompactFlash was originally based on it, though later cards moved to less expensive NAND flash.

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