|
Hyperstone,
founded in 1990, and based in Konstanz, Germany, is a fabless semiconductor and
microprocessor design company whose products include SSD controllers optimized
for low power applications. |
 |
| ......................................................................................... |
Together with subsidiaries in Taiwan,
USA and with other worldwide partners, Hyperstone serves a global customer base.
Hyperstone is a member of the CML Microsystems Plc group, traded on the London
Stock Exchange. The group currently consists of 8 subsidiaries and has over 170
employees.
Hyperstone research and development is based in Germany and
Taiwan. Industry-leading partners provide world-class wafer subcontracting,
packaging, and testing services. Hyperstone's success is based on its
proprietary 32-Bit RISC processor, optimized for flash handling applications.
Hyperstone's products include microcontrollers for
Solid State Disks (SSD),
Disk-on-Module (DoM), Disk-on-Board (DoB), embedded Flash solutions such as
eMMC, and Flash cards such as CF, SD & microSD. Flash controller firmware is
supplied complementary to the controllers and customized for each flash and
application. Hyperstone is one of the pioneers in the flash memory controller
business and owns several patents for flash handling, including wear leveling
algorithms and microprocessor design...
see also:-
Hyperstone
- editor mentions on StorageSearch.com
say
farewell to reassuringly boring industrial SSDs
miscellaneous
consequences of the 2017 memory shortages | |
| ... |
Hyperstone made its first appearance in the
Top SSD Companies List
in the 39th quarterly edition based on reader search in
Q4 2016.
In
Q4 2017 the in
situ SSD pioneer NGD Systems
moved up to the #1 slot - indicating that radical new architectures may
enter the mainstream soon. | |
| ... |
 |
- editor's comments:- May 2014 - among other things -
Hyperstone designs
SSD controllers for industrial
and embedded SSDs for use in low power applications.
The company's
patented architecture includes
skinny RAM cache
SSD principles to obviate the need for external RAM - and the design includes
strong protection against data corruption from
sudden power
loss.
For competing suppliers try taking a look at the
SSD controller
directory. |
|
|
In February 2009 -
Hyperstone launched
a controller chip for oems designing industrial grade CF compatible
SSDs. The F4 provides safe
power-fail handling, proven error detection and correction and static wear
leveling. Data transfer rate to the attached flash memory array (16 chips) is
upto 80MB/s. Sustained R/W via the CF interface is upto 50MB/s and 40MB/s
respectively. Alternatively oems can add a
SATA bridge, or
RAID controller for
other markets.
In
October 2010
- Hyperstone
announced
that Toshiba (Europe)
has agreed to provide the company with a variety of
ASIC design and
manufacturing services.
New SSD
controllers based on Toshiba semiconductor process technology will sample
in Q1, 2011.
In August
2011 -
Hyperstone
introduced their new A2
family of SSD
controllers - designed to enable physically small, very low power
consumption industrial
SATA
skinny flash
SSDs.
In May
2014 - Hyperstone
began sampling controllers for USB 2 SSDs aimed at low power, high reliability
and long data retention applications in the industrial market. Hyperstone says
its U8 USB controller (available as probed die and in a QFN-76 package) works
with SLC and 1x nm MLC.
In February 2015 -
Hyperstone said its
hyMap technology could reduce Write Amplification in industrial flash SSDs by
a factor of more than x100 in fragmented usage pattern and for small file random
writes. |
| . |
 |
| . |
aspects of
extreme diversity in SSD design
no supercaps or batteries vs 3 seconds
hold up time |
Editor:- March 23, 2015 -
zero
to three seconds are 2 numbers which demonstrate some of the extreme
diversity in SSD design.
These are the hold up times inside 2
different 2.5" SATA SSDs designed for the military market.
These
vast differences are the direct consequences of 2 different approaches to RAM
cache flash architecture.
- the regular design - uses a 3F capacitor - to enable enough time for the
DRAM cache to save all its data to flash
- the ultra skinny design - doesn't need any hold up capacitor at all
The
2 different architectures are explored in 0
to 3 S | | |
| . |
|
| |
| In 2017 the SSD market
looked like it was morphing into the memoryfication of everything (storage,
software and processing). As we're all aware from the noise on linkedin /
twitter etc the loudest action has been centered around making systems faster
and cheaper and bigger in capability - but at the other end of the arena - the
new lower capacity non volatile memory technologies are creeping into
application roles with capacities which are maybe 1,000x smaller than a single
nand flash or DRAM memory chip. |
| more sightings of more little nv data
critters expected | | |
| .. |
| Micron chooses Hyperstone's
USB controller for reliable IoT SSDs |
Editor:- March 6, 2017 -
Hyperstone's
U9 - USB 3.1 flash Memory controller has been integrated into Micron's new eU500- a
USB SSD aimed at the industrial IoT and telco market.
The eU500
has sequential read/write speed of up to 170/120 MB/s and a steady state 4K
random read/write performance of 3,000/1,000 IOPS. | | |
| .. |
 |
| .. |
"For Hyperstone, the
biggest idea and industry trend that we pushed and participated in is the
implementation of page-based-FTL running on DRAM-less controller architectures.
This approach improves random write performance, increases endurance while
maintaining power-fail robustness at the same time. As this architecture also
reduces system cost it is also adopted in consumer markets.
We also see a significant adoption of
USB 3.0 in
industrial/embedded markets. Certainly, the most hyped topics, at the
FMS for instance, were 3D NAND
and NVMe but for both we do not yet see any sufficiently mature products or any
massive adoption in our markets"
Susan Heidrich,
Sales & Marketing Manager - Hyperstone
what were
the big SSD ideas which emerged in 2016? | |
| .. |
| Hyperstone brings
enterprise-class write attenuation to industrial USB controllers |
Editor:- February 19, 2015 -
When I see an assertion about 100x better flash endurance - I smile and
think back to an article
my SSD care scheme is the
best - in May 2012 - which discusses this marketing idea and some of the
unerlying technologies. So why mention it again today?
A recent
press
release from Hyperstone
(about their new flash management technology for
industrial SSDs)
contains this exact phrase.
"hyMap reduces
Write Amplification
by a factor of more than 100 in fragmented usage pattern and for small file
random writes. Thereby, the reduction in effectively used write-erase-cycles
results in higher performance, longer life and shorter random access response
times. As a result, in many applications hyMap together with Hyperstone
controllers and MLC flash enables higher reliability and data retention than
other controllers using SLC. hyMap does
not require
any external DRAM or SRAM."
In the same announcement - Dr. Jan Peter
Berns, Managing Director of Hyperstone - acknowledges that while these
issues have already been discussed intensively for several years in the
enterprise market. Hyperstone's new hyMap controller technology brings this
kind of improvement into smaller, low power SSDs such as SD/MMC and USB which
don't have the same kind of budgets for DRAM and CPU power as enterprise SSDs. | | |
| .. |
 |
| . |
| "I'm not surprised to
see DWPD ratings in otherwise identical controller based industrial SSDs vary
even when nothing has actually changed in the BOM." |
| what's the state of DWPD? | | |
| ... |
|
| |
