Apple is reportedly in talks to acquire Israeli flash solutions maker Anobit for a sum ranging between $400 and 500 million. Anobit offers a chip that boosts flash drive performance via signal processing.

Apple doesn’t usually acquire hardware companies, but buying Anobit is essential to further round out its ecosystem. Among Anobit’s clients is Hyni, the largest provider of flash memory for Apple, and Anobit’s chip can already be found in iPhones, iPads and other Apple devices. The electronics manufacturer intends to expand its use of the technology, according to the Israeli publication that had the scoop.

“Calcalist said Apple is interested in Anobit’s technology to increase and enhance the memory volume and performance of its devices,” writes Reuters.  “The chip may as much as double the memory volume in the new iPads and MacBooks.”

And it could very well be a smart move for Apple.  Anobit is a leading Israeli provider of flash technologies, with a focus in error correction capabilities for flash, enabling 2/3 bits per cell to be used in consumer, and now in enterprise flash.

“Anobit use signal coding techniques to provide this improvement, which will be vital as the bit error rates for flash increase with sub-20nm flash,” says Wikibon CTO and co-founder David Floyer.  “Apple’s purchase o ensures access to this technology in an increasingly litigious environment.”

Apple’s involvement with the flash industry extends beyond this latest acquisition, and even beyond the company itself. Apple’s early co-founder Steve Wozniak is the chief scientist for storage memory maker Fusion-io, that is expanding its own ecosystem within the flash industry, even claiming Apple and Facebook as two high profile clients.

A couple weeks ago NexGen and Fusion entered into a partnership to incorporate ioMemory into the NexGen n5 Storage System. The upgraded SAN can help organizations reduces storage overheads by up to 90 percent while also providing decreased latency, which NexGen credited to Fusion’s technology.

Fusion-io is the fastest growing provider of flash storage in an ever-expanding space where it’s certainly not alone. A competitor is SolidFire, which appointed Mark Glasgow to be its new Vice President of Worldwide Sales last month.  As the latest member of SolidFire’s management team, Glasgow joined the company from Xiotech to fuel sales growth and expansion. He was selected for the role thanks to a resume stretching across two decades and credentials to match.