| storage chip news |
PCM Designers Promised 2nd
Source
Editor:- June 23, 2009 - Numonyx announced a
technology
agreement with Samsung
Electronics to develop common specifications for
Phase
Change Memory (PCM) products.
Both companies expecting to have
compliant devices ("pin for pin" comatible) available next year.
Editor's comments:- some large oems prefer to have alternate
sources before designing in new chips. It was
IBM's
insistence than Intel allow an official 2nd source for its x86 processors -
as part of the original Wintel PC design - which sowed the seeds for decades of
legal acrimony with AMD. (Intel and AMD didn't like each other much before that
anyway.)
Crocus Ports MRAM to Tower Fab
Editor:- June 18,
2009 -
Tower Semiconductor,
announced
it has taken an equity position (value approx $1.25 million) in Crocus Technologies,
and announced it is porting Crocus's
MRAM
to its 200mm wafer fab.
Editor's comments:- Crocus's
whitepaper -
the
Emergence of Practical MRAM (pdf) - gives the best explanation I've seen of
why, despite so many companies entering the MRAM market, so few useful products
have actually come out. It describes flaws in the intrinsic technology which
lead to data corruption (similar in concept to read-disturb errors in flash -
although completely different physically). It's necessary to fix these problems
to enable
reliable data storage.
The paper describes the proposed solution and also compares MRAM's
data density to other semiconductor memory technologies, including SRAM,
DRAM and
flash.
OEMs Race to Design Their Own SSDs
Editor:- May
27, 2009 - StorageSearch.com
disclosed today that search volume for
SSD SoCs (systems on a
chip and controllers) has overtaken
1" SSDs (includes
miniature SSD modules) this month for the first time.
Guess that
confirms my sneaking suspicion that a lot of oems want to
design their own
SSDs.
Rambus Unveils Technologies for Next Generation Fast RAMs
Editor:-
May 26, 2009 - Rambus
today unveiled a set of innovations that can advance computing
main memory beyond current
DDR3 data rate limits to
3,200Mbps.
Through this collection of licensable innovations, designers can
achieve higher memory data rates, higher effective throughput, better power
efficiency and the increased capacity necessary for future computing
applications.
storage chips
AGIGA Tech Samples High Density Non Volatile RAM Chips
Editor:-
May 26, 2009 - AGIGA
Tech started sampling
its new AGIGARAM non-volatile system ( technology which delivers densities
between 4 megabytes (32 megabits) and 2 gigabytes (16 gigabits) and peak
transfer rates equivalent to DRAMs.
"Today's memory technologies all have a problem. DRAM is
volatile, flash is slow, SRAM with batteries is unreliable, and alternative
technologies are too costly to use in large densities," said Jim Handy,
Director of Objective
Analysis. "Products like AgigA Tech's that combine the best attributes
of DRAM and
NAND are likely to meet
with broad acceptance."
Unity Semiconductor Unveils Flash's Successor
Editor:-
May 19, 2009 - Unity
Semiconductor exited stealth mode and stated its aim to have the
lowest manufacturing cost per bit in the non volatile memory industry with a
new breakthrough technology called
CMOx.
The
company said it will ship 64Gb devices in volume in 2011. Unity Semiconductor
says it will develop and produce NAND flash successor technologies and
products that, in time, will extend into high ]performance embedded and
enterprise applications.
"It's a Technology for Terabits that
will challenge high volume rotating magnetic media" said Unity
Semiconductor Chairman, President & CEO Darrell Rinerson a former executive
at Micron Technology
and at AMD.
The
company, also announced today it has closed a Series C funding round for $22
million. This brings to nearly $75M the total funding to date in Unity
Semiconductor.
Inside PCIe Gen3
Editor:- May 19, 2009 - Electronic Design today published a
new article -
PCI
Express And The PHY(sical) Journey To Gen 3.
"PCIe Gen3 will
make possible legacy channel functionality at 8 Gbits/s per lane."
The
article looks at the legacy of PCIe and the interactions between error
correction, data transmission and power saving strategies. And it describes the
architectures and strategies required for the next generation of speedup.
See
also:- SSD Controllers
/ IP, storage chips,
PCIe SSDs
New Standard for 1.8" SSDs
Editor:- May 18,
2009 - JEDEC
today published a
new
standard for 1.8"
Slim SSDs.
MO-297 defines the dimensions, layout and connector
position for 54mm x 39mm SSDs with a standard
SATA connector.
"MO-297
is the first document to standardize a physical outline for a solid state drive.
Adoption of this standard has the potential to deliver significant benefits for
the industry by creating a single outline for storage suppliers and systems
manufacturers to use and reference," said Jim Leidy, Business Development
Manager for Tyco Electronics and
Chairman of the JEDEC Task Group behind the effort. Storage ORGs
Article Peers into Nanocrystal NAND
Editor:- May
18, 2009 - a good article published on Semiconductor International called
- Peering
into Nanocrystal NAND - looks at factors affecting the potetial for future
shrinks in flash memory.
The author David Lammers
tackles an issue which I know has been worrying many flash SSD designers. He
starts with this sobering observation... "As the polysilicon floating
gate becomes smaller, fewer electrons are used to store a single bit. Any
rupture in the floating gate allows the electrons to leak away, presenting
reliability
challenges." ...read
the article
Skymedi Enters SSD Controller Market
Editor:- May
14, 2009 - Skymedi
has
launched a SATA
SSD controller aimed at the notebook market.
It supports R/W speeds
up to 180MB/s and 150MB/s respectively and upto 512GB capacity.
That
brings the number of companies listed on our merchant market
SSD controller and IP page
up to 17. This growing SSD ecostructure makes it easier for new oems to
enter the SSD market.
Ramtron's F-RAM Casualty of Auto Market Crash
Editor:-
May 7, 2009 - Ramtron
said its revenue
declined
26% in the 1st quarter of 2009 compared to the year ago period.
A
sharp decline in orders from the automotive market was cited as a principal
cause.
Ramtron also announced an update on a legal suit related to
in-field failures of one of its F-RAM memory products in an unspecified
application. (In July 2008 Ramtron confirmed that specific batches of product
had failed due to manufacturing
process
defects in one of its partners fabs.)
Ramtron also announced
today that, over the next 2 years, it will transition the manufacturing of
products that are currently being built at Fujitsu's chip foundry located in
Iwate, Japan to its foundry at Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas and to its
newest foundry at IBM Corp in Essex Junction, Vermont.
Sonics Solves Complex On-chip Connectivity Problems
MILPITAS,
Calif., - May 5, 2009 - Sonics, Inc. has announced the Sonics Network
for AMBA Protocol or SNAP.
The product is a cost-effective,
turn-key solution designed to simplify the on-chip bus design for complex
embedded SoCs by turning multilayer bus designs into an IP block. SNAP's
easy-to-use development environment allows developers to quickly and intuitively
capture their design with little or no training.
As the number of IP cores in embedded SoC designs continues to grow,
current bus structures are becoming complex and time consuming to design. In
addition, memory access problems can arise because there are now multiple
processors competing for memory resources. SNAP addresses both of these problems
by first turning the complex interconnection of multiple cores into a customized
IP block, thus reducing the chip design effort. And 2nd, SNAP improves the
overall data flow in the systems, thereby improving bus performance and
eliminating memory bottlenecks.
...Sonics profile
PLX Unveils Single Chip PCIe-to-USB 2.0 Host Controller Bridge
Editor:-
May 4, 2009 -
PLX Technology
announced volume production of the OXPCIe200 ($7.65) - a high-performance
PCIe-to-USB 2.0
single-chip host controller bridge.
The new device delivers up to
62.5Mb/s data throughput, has a low power requirement of 300mW, and a small
footprint (9x9mm) Thin Array Plastic Package.
storage chips
Emulex says "No" to a future "Connecting everything®"
Editor:- May 4, 2009 - Emulex announced today
it has
rejected
an unsolicited acquisition offer from Broadcom.
...Later:-
May 5, 2009 - Broadcom
extended
the deadline for their offer and published a press release saying what a
great deal it would be for shareholders. "Broadcom's all-cash offer is not
subject to a financing condition. Broadcom intends to fund the offer with its
existing cash holdings."
Emulex, in its rejection letter, had
pointed to the potential value in recent design wins. Broadcom rubbished this
assertion with this pithy analysis.
"... while Emulex has touted
its "design wins" in its response to Broadcom and in other
communications with the financial community, it has failed to demonstrate an
ability to convert design wins into either revenue growth or market share.
Over the last several years, including this most recent quarter, Emulex has
continued to lose share to its larger competitor (QLogic)."
Editor's
comments:- the FC,
10GbE and
InfiniBand adapter
markets used to be pivotal enabling tools for fast
SANs in the enterprise
server computing market. However, in recent times these network technologies
have become commodities - and their prospects
have waned..
As I've said before, the future of fast storage interconnects will be dominated
by the requirements of the SSD
market instead of the HDD
market. Redeploying the intellectual property of these storage connections
into closer proximity with solid state storage is something which the
traditional HBA business model cannot achieve - or which takes too long.
Broadcom's
mission statement "Connecting everything®" is more in line with
the future vision of the computer market than the old-style duopoly of Emulex
(and QLogic) which dominate a market that's going to become irrelevant.
New Guide for SSD Wannabies
Editor:- April 28, 2009
- StorageSearch.com
published a new article today called -
"3 Easy Ways to
Enter the SSD Market."
Nowadays it seems like everyone wants
to get into the SSD market. This tells you how to do it. ...read the article
SandForce Unveils New flash SSD Controller
Editor:-
April 13, 2009 - SandForce
today
emerged
from stealth mode and unveiled its
SF-1000 family of SSD
Processors - aimed at oems building SATA flash SSDs.
Its 2.5" SSD
reference design kit is the fastest 2.5" SATA flash SSD on the market -
with 250MB/s symmetric R/W throughput and 30,000 R/W IOPS.
Leading OEMs
are expected to release both SLC and MLC flash-based SSDs using SandForce
single-chip SSD Processors later this year.
new home page for - SSD SoCs
Editor:- April 7, 2009 -
StorageSearch.com today
launched a new directory of merchant market
SSD SoC vendors.
Product
marketers who are in such companies, and who are not already listed, should
contact me
by email - with the subject line "SSD
SoCs".
Intel EOLs PATA SSD DOM
Editor:- April 6, 2009 - a
report on TGDaily.com
says that Intel
is EOLing its
Z-P230
SSD module which was aimed at the netbook market.
If you look at the
1.0" SSDs directory
here on StorageSearch.com you'll
see that 25 companies now make SSD chips, DOMs or modules designed to
fit into very small footprints.
How Good SSD Controllers Manage Flash Data Integrity
Editor:-
April 3, 2009 - SNIA
has published a new white paper -
"NAND
Flash Solid State Storage for the Enterprise - an in-depth Look at Reliability."
(pdf)
It's co-authored by:- Jonathan Thatcher
Fusion-io, Tom
Coughlin Coughlin
Associates, Jim Handy
Objective
Analysis and Neal Ekker
Texas Memory Systems.
The
article contains the best integrated explanation I've seen of the design
trade-offs for error correction schemes and how they affect bit error rates
compared to the raw uncorrected results. It goes on to explain the
importance of the SSD controller and memory architecture (dispersing data
among many chips) and how these can improve data integrity by managing read
disturb errors. It also discusses wear-leveling and write amplification which
have been well covered elsewhere. ...read
the article
See also:-
SSD Reliability -
Understanding Data Failure Modes in Large Solid State Storage Arrays
How 3D Memory Stacks Up - New Market Report
Editor:-
April 1, 2009 - Forward Insights
has released a new 70+ page report (price $5,499) called -
How 3D Memory Stacks
Up.
3D memory technologies offer the promise of continued increases
in storage capacities and lower cost per bit necessary to enable emerging
applications such as solid
state drives. Among the candidates: stacked NAND technologies employing
charge trapping technology, vertical memory cells etched in a pillar and
stackable cross-point memory arrays. This report explores the feasibility of
each of these alternatives as a candidate to replace NAND
flash memories within the
next 4 years.
New Real-Time Design / Debug Tool for FC / NAS OEMs
Editor:-
March 25, 2009 - Absolute Analysis
has
announced
enhancements to its range of
serial data test tools
- such as...
- ability to check system behavior in the presence of latency (failure and
recovery) for Fibre Channel and Ethernet protocols, including
FCoE,
AFDX,
iSCSI, IP, IPv6, TCP
- ability to corrupt one or more network events in real-time and simulate
data loss, data corruption, protocol errors and data errors, and check device
under test error recovery procedures.
"Absolute Analysis is proud to offer engineers a much-needed
single solution featuring the integration of sophisticated tools for use in data
communications, telecommunications, and military communications, to capture,
analyze, delay, modify, and verify data at full line rate," stated Dennis
Murphy, President of Absolute Analysis. "This release... enables
in-line, real-time impairment testing coupled with a powerful error injector and
analysis that far exceed existing industry offerings." Storage Testers & Analyzers
RRAM Steps Closer to Commercial Fabs
Editor:- March
10, 2009 - 4DS
announced
additional funding
as part of a multi-million dollar equity investment to port its
RRAM
technology to existing semiconductor fabs.
"PPP's investment
during a very tepid investment climate is testimony to the strength of our
technology and strategy," said Kurt Pfluger, CEO of 4DS, Inc. "We have
demonstrated the leaps in performance, flexibility and cost from our proprietary
process that will help enable a variety of compelling future memory
applications. With this additional investment from PPP, we are better positioned
to bring this technology to market."
Samsung Announces 40nm Geometry for Flex-OneNAND
Seoul,
Korea - March 10, 2009 - Samsung
Electronics - today announced that it has begun using 40nm process
technology to produce an 8Gb
Flex-OneNAND
fusion memory chip.
Flex-OneNAND incorporates SLC and MLC NAND on a
single piece of silicon, allowing application designers to choose the portion of
SLC and MLC NAND storage to be used in any particular design through a simple
adjustment to the accompanying software. This maximizes the performance and
efficiency of the embedded flash chip. storage chips
Linkvast Unveils SSD Controllers
Editor:- February
25, 2009 - Linkvast
Technologies unveiled a family of
4 channel
(32bit/32CE) and
8 channel
(64bit/64CE) SATA flash SSD controllers that will ship in June, 2009.
The
controllers support all mainstream SLC & MLC
flash memory devices. The
external DRAM architecture enhances SSD performance and can reduce flash
wear out. Package is 279-Balls 15mm x 15mm LBGA.
Hyperstone Launches CF SSD Controller
Konstanz,
Germany - February 19, 2009 - Hyperstone launched a controller
chip for oems designing industrial grade CF compatible SSDs. |
 |
The F4 provides safe power-fail
handling, 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. ...Hyperstone
profile
ZoneLoc Prevents flash SSD Data Walking into the Wrong Hands
Phoenix, Arizona - February
12, 2009 - White Electronic Designs Corp announced a new technology -
ZoneLoc - which automatically sanitizes a flash SSD to military standards -
when the device is moved outside a specified operating zone - to prevent data
falling into enemy hands.
The boundary can be tied to a fixed
location or made to be portable for mobile applications. ZoneLoc has
configurable features and options, including audible warnings, programmable
response times, wireless remote purging and sensitivity modes. By combining
ZoneLoc with encryption and/or physical protection technology, data protection
is maximized. Because the protected device takes its own action, autonomously,
security is guaranteed. ...White Electronic Designs
profile, Storage
Security, Disk
Sanitizers
SanDisk Bullish about X4 Flash
ISSCC,
San Francisco, Calif - February 10, 2009 - SanDisk Corp today
announced that it will begin mass-production of the world's first
4-bits-per-cell (X4) flash memory.
Using 43nm process technology,
this breakthrough enables 64Gb memory in a single die - the highest capacity in
the industry.
...SanDisk profile,
Unveiling XLC Flash SSD
Technology - spoof article on X4 MLC
Cypress Announces Management Change in Memory Division
SAN
JOSE, Calif. - February 5, 2008 - Cypress Semiconductor Corp. today
announced that Ahmad Chatilla, EVP of the Memory and Imaging Division
will be leaving the company this month to pursue an opportunity as the CEO of a
semiconductor wafer supplier.
He will be replaced by 21-year
Cypress veteran, Dana Nazarian, who is currently the VP of the synchronous SRAM
business unit of MID.
"Ahmad has been a valuable member of the Cypress executive team.
Working with Dana and the rest of the management team in MID, he has created an
extremely profitable and cash-flow-generating enterprise-even in the current
economic environment," commented T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress. "We are
sorry to see Ahmad leave after 15 years with Cypress, but we take pride in what
he has been able to accomplish and we wish him the best in his new career as CEO
of MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc."
Dana Nazarian joined Cypress in 1988 as a new college graduate from
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a BSEE and rose steadily throughout the
company in a variety of technical and business roles.
...Cypress
Semiconductor profile, storage
people, storage chips
Austin Semiconductor Announces Smallest Mil Temp 4.8Gb DDR2
Austin,
Texas - January 19, 2009 - Austin Semiconductor, Inc. announced
volume availability of a new mil temp DDR2 memory device.
Packaged
in a 16mm x 23mm, 208 ball BGA with a ball pitch of 1.00mm, the 4.8Gb device is
organized as 64M x 72 and offers performance benchmarks up to 667Mbps data rate
while operating within the Mil-Temperature range of -55 to +125 degrees C,
which makes it ideal for hi-reliability applications. The 208 PBGA offers 61%
space savings, 55% I/O reduction, reduced part count and reduced trace lengths
for lower parasitic capacitance.
"With 208 PBGA we continue to
expand our product line of high performance highly integrated iPEMs (Integrated
Plastic Encapsulated Microcircuits). The AS4DDR264M72PBG1 is our smallest device
in the 4.8Gb product offering and will continue to drive towards smaller, lower
power and more reliable memory products using our integration process" says
Frank Muscolino, VP of Business Development. ...Austin Semiconductor
profile, storage chips,
Military Storage
SiliconDrive Blade Gets Editor Award in Electronic Design Magazine
Editor:- January 13, 2009 - SiliconSystems
announced that its SiliconDrive
Blade has been selected as a "2008 Best
Electronic Design" technology of the year winner in the embedded small
form factor category.
The awards are chosen by the editorial staff
of Electronic Design magazine from
announcements they have received during the year. Editor
Bill Wong
cited SiliconDrive Blade's innovative design as a necessary development in
accelerating wide-spread adoption of
SSDs in embedded systems.
RMI Chip Aims at Consumer NAS Market
Cupertino, CA - January
9, 2009 - RMI Corp announced the availability of a comprehensive
reference design kit for the SMB NAS Market.
The solution is based
on RMI's XLS Processor, a dual-core multi-threaded SoC which, the company says,
supports outstanding networking performance, a rich feature set, and flexible
interface options, allowing customers to quickly release a powerful solution for
multimedia NAS applications. ...RMI profile,
storage chips
SanDisk's CEO Receives Exemplary Leadership Award
Milpitas, CA -
December 11, 2008 - SanDisk Corp announced that its founder and CEO -
Dr. Eli Harari today received the Global Semiconductor Alliance's
Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award.
The prestigious award
recognizes individuals whose contributions to the semiconductor industry
exemplify a transformative vision and global leadership. Dr. Harari, along with
his colleagues Sanjay Mehrotra and Jack Yuan, founded SanDisk in 1988. Since
then, SanDisk has grown into the world's largest supplier of
flash memory cards, with
revenues in excess of $3.89 billion in 2007.
Eli Harari holds a Ph.D.
in solid state sciences from Princeton University, and received a B.S. in
physics with honors from Manchester University. In addition to inventing EEPROM,
the precursor to flash, Harari's technical resume includes more than 100 U.S.
and foreign patents. ...SanDisk
profile,
Storage People
STMicroelectronics Samples Secure e-Passport Microcontroller
Geneva,
Switzerland - November 25, 2008 - STMicroelectronics is sampling a
new microcontroller for secure identity cards.
The ST23YR80, which offers contact and contactless interfaces,
complies with the most advanced security smartcard standards and meets
ICAO requirements for machine readable
travel documents. The EAC (extended access control) e-Passport operation will
be supported in less than 3.5 seconds. The device can also optimize the
operating distance and transaction time by adapting its processor clock speed to
the magnetic field of the application reader It has 80Kbytes of onchip flash
memory to store extra biometric data.
...STMicroelectronics
profile, Storage
Security
Flash Memory's Next Shrink Now Shipping
Boise,
Idaho - November 24, 2008 - Intel Corp and Micron Technology Inc.
today announced mass production of their jointly developed 34nm, 32 gigabit
MLC NAND flash memory device.
The process technology enables the
industry's only monolithic 32Gb NAND chip that fits into a standard 48-lead
TSOP. The new chip will cost-effectively enable high-density solid-state
storage in small form factor applications including digital cameras, personal
music players and digital camcorders. Additionally, it will enable more
cost-effective SSDs,
dramatically increasing their current storage capacity. ...Intel profile ,
...Micron profile,
Flash Memory
Oxford Semi Dangles DAS Dongles
MilpitasCalif. -
November 4 , 2008 - Oxford Semiconductor today unveiled 2 new DAS
security encryption chips.
Aimed at
storage oems - the
OXUS931SE and OXUFS936DSE feature an embedded hardware encryption engine
enabling real time encryption with no loading on the host PC.
The
OXUFS936DSE
supports FireWire,
USB and
eSATA interfaces and
2 directly connected SATA disks. In addition, the device offers a range of LCD
and LED user interfaces that are supported by the flexible software framework,
greatly enhancing its capacity for product differentiation.
The OXUS931SE
is aimed at the consumer who needs low cost, single-drive secure storage. In a
traditional implementation, the OXUS931SE acts as a high performance bridge from
USB2.0 or eSATA ports to a SATA
hard disk drive in an
external storage box
supporting all current PC and Mac platforms. And, because of the OXUS931SE's
high performance, it can also be implemented as a internal security dongle
between a SATA port on the system motherboard and any internal SATA disk drive
without any loss of throughput, for a fast and easy upgrade to a secure
information system.
...Oxford
Semiconductor profile, storage
chips, Storage
Security
LSI Announces 16 Port SAS I/O Processor
SNW, TX -
October 14, 2008 - LSI Corp today introduced a 16-port SAS storage
processor chip.
The new LSISAS2116 is the industry's first
single-chip, 16-port 6Gb/s
SAS storage
processor for external storage systems. It integrates a PowerPC application
processor, x8 PCIe 2.0 bus and support for 8GB of 800MHz DDR2 memory.
...LSI profile,
storage chips
Austin Semiconductor Offers First US Assembled TSOPII Military
SDRAM
Austin,
Texas - October 13, 2008 - Austin Semiconductor, Inc. has expanded their
semiconductor assembly services by adding the only onshore (US) TSOPII
capability.
The first product is a 512Mb, 54-Pin TSOPII SDRAM with
copper lead frame. The TSOPII features a Lead on Chip (LOC) design, which allows
the size of the package to be approximately the chip size, which reduces the
size to the minimum. The device is a 512Mb, 32Mb x 16, 3.3V, SDRAM, measuring
22.30mm x 11.76mm, with a height of 1.2mm. Full Military temp (-55°C to 125°C)
processing is available. This product is currently available and Austin Semi is
capable of providing 8,000 – 10,000 parts per month.
"Austin
Semiconductor is pleased to be able to support the Hi-Rel community's need for
thermal efficient and mechanically robust plastic packaging with our 54-pin
TSOPII. In addition, we are offering our Hi-Rel customers more security and
confidence by being the only domestic supplier with the TSOPII capability,"
says Frank Muscolino, President of Austin Semiconductor.
The TSOPII is ideally suited for High-Temp applications in the
Automotive / Industrial / Military industries, cellular base stations, gas / oil
explorations, Aerospace & Avionics, Engine Control, On-Board Flight
Computers and Radar / Sonar. ...Austin Semiconductor
profile, RAM,
storage chips
Cypress Integrates Non Volatile Static RAM in Controller
SAN
JOSE, Calif. - September 22, 2008 - Cypress Semiconductor Corp. today
introduced the industry's first device to integrate a non-volatile static random
access memory (nvSRAM) and a programmable system on chip.
The new
PSoC NV family combines the flexible design capabilities of Cypress's flagship
PSoC architecture with an infinite endurance nvSRAM in a single package.
PSoC NV devices integrate configurable analog and digital circuits, controlled
by an on-chip microcontroller, providing both enhanced design revision
capability and component count savings. The secure-store data logging devices
target the computing, networking, telecomm, automotive and industrial markets.
"The PSoC architecture offers integration and flexibility
advantages over other embedded control offerings, and nvSRAMs deliver superior
performance compared to other non-volatile memories," said Robert Dunnigan,
VP of Non-Volatile Products business unit at Cypress." ...Cypress Semiconductor
profile
Editor's comments:- I thought you might want to
think about the potential of using nvSRAM in
flash SSDs.
In
the future I think that very high performance flash SSDs will incorporate
small amounts of non volatile RAM technology - to get better internal controller
performance.
Current designs use large flash arrays and
relatively small volatile RAMs. As there is always a risk of power failure -
the way that the internal state of the SSD controller is managed is a defensive
compromise which protects against data loss - but doesn't permit the same level
of random access time that you would get if the designers were confident that
the RAM was non volatile. This design trade-off is compatible with high
throughput - but (even in the best designs) results in an order of magnitude
worse latency than RAM SSDs.
For
those interested in seeing how nvSRAM technology could be integrated in an SSD
controller take a look at the article called
nvSRAMs
eclipse battery-backed memory. The example given in the article is for
industrial products. But remember that most innovations in SSDs
originally
came from either hard industrial or military applications. |
| . | | |
|
| Are MLC SSDs Safe
in Enterprise Apps? |
This is a follow up
article to the popular
SSD Myths and
Legends which, a year earlier demolished the myth that flash memory
wear-out (a comfort blanket beloved by many
RAM SSD makers)
precluded the use of flash in heavy duty datacenters.
This new
article looks at the risks posed by MLC Nand Flash SSDs which have recently
hatched from their breeeding ground as chip modules in cellphones and morphed
into
hard disk form
factors. |
 |
It starts down a familiar
lane but an unexpected technology twist (which arrived in my email while
writing this article) takes you to a startling new world of possibilities.
...read the
article | | |
| . |
|
|
| . |
| Can You Trust Your Flash
SSD's Specs? |
Editor:- I've noticed is that
the published specs of
flash SSDs change
a lot -from the time a product they are first announced, then when they're
being sampled, and later again when they are in volume production.
Sometimes
the headline numbers get better, sometimes they get worse. There are many good
reasons for this.
The product which you carefully qualified may
not be identical to the one that's going into your production line for a
variety of reasons... ...read the article | |
| . |
|
|
| . |
 |
Increasing
Flash Solid State Disk Reliability - article by SiliconSystems
Solid
state disks, based on flash technology, have greatly improved in performance in
recent years and now compete head to head with RAM based accelerator systems.
Flash also has significant advatanges in servers compared to RAM SSDs due to low
power consumption.
But if you think that all solid state disks which
use flash are equally reliable and enduring then think again.
That's
a bit like saying that a Mercedes 300SL sports coupe is as tough as a Tiger
tank because both were made in Germany and both are built out of metal. But as
Oddball (Donald Sutherland) says in the movie
Kelly's
Heroes "I ain't messing with no Tigers."
This article
by SiliconSystems, shows how their patented architecture cleverly manages the
wear out mechanisms inherent in all flash media to deliver a disk lifetime that
is about 4 times greater than of other enterprise flash products and upto 100
times greater than intrinsic flash memory. ...read the article,
...SiliconSystems
profile, Solid state disks | |
| . |
|
|
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| Z's Laws - Predicting
Future Flash SSD Performance |
A reader asked me a
very good question.
"Is there an industry roadmap for future
flash SSD
performance?"
That prompted other questions like...
- How fast are flash SSDs going to be in 2009?, 2010? or 2012?
- What are the technology factors which relate to flash SSD throughput and
IOPS?
- How close will flash SSDs get to
RAM SSD performance?
There wasn't a simple answer I could give at the time. Clues lay
scattered all across this web site
and in my many one on one discussions with readers about the market... |
 |
But I agreed there should be
a single place on the web where these answers could be found.
Forget
Moore's
Law. That gives you the wrong answer, and this article explains why. ...read the article | | |
| . |
the Fastest Solid State
Disks
Speed isn't everything, and it comes at a price. |
But if
you do need the6speediest
SSD then wading through the web sites of over 86 current
SSD oems to find a suitable
candidate slows you down.
And the SSD search problem will get even
worse. |
 | |
I
predict there will be over 100 SSD oems in 2008.
I've done the
research for you to save you time. And this page is updated daily from
storage news and direct
inputs from oems. ...read
the article, | | |
