SiliconBeat

The last few months have been rough on tech stocks. And as such, SanDisk (ticker:SNDK) is hardly alone in watching its stock price get cut in half:

It was a particularly challenging year for the flash memory company, which instituted a temporary salary reduction from March 2007 to August for its executive officers, ranging from 15 percent to 20 percent. The cut was part of an overall cost reduction program to help the company remain competitive as the price of flash memory continues to dip.

All that drama and penny pinching didn’t seem to take a bit bite out of executive compensation, according to the latest proxy statement filed on Monday by SanDisk.

For instance, Dr. Eli Harari, SanDisk’s chief executive and chairman, received total compensation of $10.5 million in 2007, up from $9.97 million the previous year. Although Harari’s salary dipped, he received bigger chunks of restricted stock and options.

Of course, the value of these stocks and options are just estimates in the proxy. We’ll have to see whether these turn out to be worth the digital paper they’re printed on.