| storage chip news |
Chip Leaders Plan Move to
450mm Wafers
May 5,
2008 - Intel, Samsung Electronics and TSMC today
announced they have reached agreement on the need for industry-wide
collaboration to target a transition to larger, 450mm-sized wafers starting in
2012.
Historically, manufacturing with larger wafers eventually
produces semiconductors at a lower cost. The total silicon surface area of a
450mm wafer and the number of printed die (individual computer chips, for
example) is more than twice that of a 300mm wafer.
New 1.0" SSD Directory
Editor:- April 28, 2008 -
STORAGEsearch.com published a new article and directory related to 1.0"
(and smaller) SSDs and HDDs.
Once the exclusive preserve of the
military, spooks and space scientists this market is now dominated by the needs
of shoppers for consumer lifestyle and entertainment gadgets - with market
volume projections resembling international phone numbers. ...read the article
SSD Controller Company Gets $22 million Funding
Santa Clara, Calif. - April 9,
2008 - Link_A_Media Devices Corp secured $22 million in Series
B financing.
The funding round, led by
AIG SunAmerica Ventures,
was secured from 4 additional financial and corporate investors -
KeyNote Ventures,
NEC Electronics,
Micron and
Seagate.
Link_A_Media Devices is developing a new class of
chip controller resident
data recovery solutions for
HDDs and
SSDs. These are
designed to exceed the performance of conventional methods deployed in
peripheral storage devices, as well as provide adaptive features that can be
used during manufacturing to improve drive yields and product margins.
...Link_A_Media
Devices profile
Editor's comments:- MLC flash SSDs have
high internal
error rates and are currently unrecoverable. It looks like Link_A_Media's
technology could improve the odds of
data recovery in
failed devices which incorporate its technology (as well as reducing data errors
while the SSD is still operational.)
Another side effect of their
technology may be better
performance in
flash SSDs.
Link_A_Media
says their IOP
Buster architecture enables scalability within the controller to address
various segments of SSD applications seamlessly. It enables faster Read and
Write transfers.
6Gb/s SAS Storage Comes Closer
SANTA
CLARA, Calif - April 7, 2008 - PMC-Sierra, Inc. and Seagate
Technology today announced interoperability between PMC-Sierra's
end-to-end 6Gb/s SAS chipset and Seagate's early development 6Gb/s SAS HDDs.
Travis Karr, VP of marketing at PMC-Sierra said "This
achievement provides server and storage system OEMs with the confidence that
PMC-Sierra and Seagate products will work together seamlessly in a SAS-2
eco-system."
...PMC-Sierra profile,
...Seagate profile,
chips
AMD Announces Design Kit for Storage Bridge 2.0
ORLANDO,
FL - April 7, 2008 - At the Storage Networking World conference AMD
announced availability of the first Reference Design Kit for the SBB 2.0
specification based on the AMD Athlon processor.
AMD expects
this will help storage vendors deliver low power, high performance, entry-level
networked storage systems while helping reduce time-to-market. AMD also today
announced 3 new, low power AMD Athlon dual-core processors for embedded system
designs. ...AMD profile
Unveiling XLC Flash SSD Technology
Editor:- March 31, 2008 -
STORAGEsearch.com today published an article about stealth mode fabless
semiconductor company, XLC Disk, Inc called - Unveiling XLC Flash SSD
Technology.
It describes their revolutionary multi-level cell nand
flash technology which may appear in a new range of high density
flash SSDs in Q1
2009.
Overcoming the intrinsic technology problems which have limited
previous MLC
devices to 2 bits in a single
flash memory cell - the
new XLC technology uses a patent pending calibration / discriminator
architecture which enables reliable operation with 4 bits (with today's process
technology) and may be scalable to more bits in the future.
If
successful - this type of technology could deliver 16x the storage density
currently available from SLC SSDs using the same area of silicon - thereby
closing the gap in cost per gigabyte between
SSDs and
HDDs. As with any new
storage technology reliability
is an unknown factor - but XLC Disk claim that intrinsic data repeatability
(before on chip error correction) is at least as good as current MLC devices.
This article was initially planned for publication tomorrow (on April
1st) but when I contacted Jim Handy at
Objective
Analysis for a comment on this spoof concept - he surprised me by saying
that he knows of at least one of the
top 10 SSD companies
which is working on exactly this type of technology. It shows that fact can be
stranger than fiction - and we can expect to see SSDs starting to put price
pressue on the hard drive market years earlier than predicted by Moore's Law
type density improvements. ...read the article
IMI Launches SATA SSD Testers
Milpitas, Calif - March
20, 2008 - International Microsystems Inc. today announced immediate
availability of 3 new SATA SSD testers.
The IMI testers support
functional testing including read/write functional tests, read/write speed tests
as well as parametric standby/dynamic current tests. Also supported is the
initialization of the
SSD controller which is
normally required as the first step in production testing.
- The M7305 is a 4 slot engineering tester.
- The M7300 is a 4 - 16 slot benchtop production tester.
- The M7310 is a 4 to 16 slot burn in chamber production tester with a
temperature range from -73°C to +180°C.
All models can be used as SATA SSD
duplicators with
master data being supplied by either a master drive or by a master binary file.
...IMI profile
New High-Volume DDR2 SO-DIMM Test Adapter
Houston,
Texas - March 11, 2008 - INNOVENTIONS, Inc. is now shipping a rugged
adapter for testing 200-pin DDR2 SO-DIMM memory modules with its RAMCHECK
memory tester.
It tests PC2-5300/5400, PC2-4200 and PC2-3200 DDR2 modules and is
manufactured specifically for high-volume testing. During each test, the memory
module's size, structure and type are automatically detected. The tester spots
bad memory chips and alerts the user with a warning tone and visual signal. A
typical test takes less than a minute. ...INNOVENTIONS profile
LSI Acquires Infineon's HDD Chip Business
MILPITAS,
Calif - March 10, 2008 - LSI Corp today announced that it has signed a
definitive agreement to acquire the assets of the hard disk drive semiconductor
business of Infineon Technologies AG
The agreement calls for LSI to purchase the assets and IP of the
Infineon HDD business, which includes product designs, related software,
inventory and test equipment. The transaction is expected to close within 60
days.
...LSI profile,
...Infineon profile
Editor's
comments:- the 2 companies have done business before. In
August 2007
Infineon agreed to pay $0.5 billion for LSI's Mobility Products Group which
designed chips for cellphone handsets and satellite comms applications. |
|
| Are MLC
SSDs Ever Safe in Enterprise Apps? |
Editor:- February
27, 2008 - STORAGEsearch.com published a new article today called - Are
MLC SSDs Ever Safe in Enterprise Apps?
This is a follow up
article to the popular
SSD Myths and
Legends which, in early 2007, 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 this morning) takes you to a startling new world of
possibilities. ...read the article
PRC Becomes New OpenSPARC Incubator
Beijing,
Santa Clara, CA - February 27, 2008 - Sun Microsystems, Inc. and the
Ministry of Education for the People's Republic of China today announced a 3
year collaboration agreement designed to meet China's demand for cultivating IC
engineering talent.
The agreement is based on Sun's
OpenSPARC program which MOE said it
selected because it is the fastest microprocessor in the world, and Sun is the
only major processor vendor to freely offer its designs to the open source
community. As a result over 100 educators each year in selected universities
will be trained and qualified on OpenSPARC technology. ...Sun Microsystems
profile, SPARC Product
Directory
Qimonda Announces Roadmap to 30nm DRAM
Munich,
Germany - February 25, 2008 - Qimonda AG today announced its
technology roadmap down to the 30nm generation.
"This new
technology has the potential to deliver improvements in our productivity and
cost per bit that are unprecedented in our company's history," said Kin Wah
Loh, President and CEO of Qimonda AG. "We are the first in the industry to
unveil a DRAM technology
roadmap down to the 30nm generation." ...Qimonda profile
MCP Flash Report - to be or NOR to be?
Los Gatos, CA - February
8, 2008 - Objective Analysis has completed a new study entitled -
Flash Packaging: What Phone Makers Want & Why.
This 32-page report is an in-depth review of the flash MCP market for
cell phone handsets and looks into the reasons that OEMs choose the chip
configurations they do. One finding - flash multichip packages are
predominantly NOR/RAM configurations today and are likely to remain that way for
the next few years.
"NAND is making great headway in cell phone
handsets through both cards and embedded NAND stacks, but the multichip package
is still largely a NOR/RAM product," said Jim Handy, the report's author. "Although
NAND flash is finding some acceptance in handset MCPs, cell phone manufacturers
find that they have more flexibility by leaving the NAND out of this type of
package." ...Objective
Analysis profile, Market
research
P.A. Semi will be Inside NEC Storage Arrays
SANTA CLARA, CA -
January 10, 2008 - P.A. Semi, Inc. today announced that the System
Storage Products Division of NEC has selected P.A. Semi's processor for
use in its storage-array products.
"We are very pleased with
the results of our evaluation of the
P.A. Semi 1682M processor,"
said Mr. Tsuyoshi Kishino, First Engineering Dept, System Storage Products
Division, NEC. "In our application, we found that the 1682M delivers the
highest application performance at very low power dissipation." ...NEC profile,
...P.A. Semi
New SoC for Universal Optical Disk Player Designers
Las Vegas, NV -
January 7, 2008 - Broadcom Corp today announced a new reference
design platform for OEMs developing HD optical disc players.
The
BCM 97440 reference design is built around Broadcom's 7440 (currently
shipping in players made by Samsung and LG) which is the industry's only
single-chip solution that fully supports the requirements of both Blu-ray Disc
and HD DVD standards.
With 2 high definition optical disc media
player options currently available, consumers are often confused when it comes
to choosing one format over the other. The BCM97440 reference design alleviates
this industry dilemma by providing media player manufacturers with the design
tools capable of meeting the demanding processing requirements of both Blu-ray
Disc and HD DVD standards.
...Broadcom profile,
optical drives
PNY and SanDisk Settle Patent Dispute
MILIPITAS,
CA - January 3, 2008 - SanDisk Corp and PNY Technologies
today announced they have signed a patent cross-license agreement to settle
patent cases filed by SanDisk last year related to removable flash memory
products.
Under the terms of the cross-license, PNY will pay
SanDisk royalties on flash memory products that were not previously licensed.
...PNY profile,
...SanDisk profile,
storage chips
Intel Expands Use of LSI's RAID Chips
SANTA
CLARA - December 12, 2007 - Intel Corp and LSI Corp today
announced an agreement to broaden the availability of LSI SAS/SATA RAID chip
solutions for Intel's worldwide channel network.
The two
companies have collaborated since 2003.
...Intel profile,
...LSI profile |
|
| Ramtron Releases 125°C
Automotive F-RAM |
COLORADO
SPRINGS, CO - December 4, 2007 - Ramtron International Corp today added
another 4 kilobit F-RAM memory device to its automotive product line.
The
FM25040A-GA
is now specified to operate at +125C and is guaranteed to retain data for
9,000 hours at that extreme temperature. Ideal for advanced powertrain systems,
the FM25040A-GA offers fast writes, virtually unlimited endurance, and low
power. It's a direct hardware replacement for equivalent EEPROMs but offers No
Delay writes. The FM25040A-GA is guaranteed to retain data for 17 years at +55
degrees C.
...Ramtron profile |
| . | | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| . |
| Squeak!
- SSD Myths and Legends - "write endurance" |
| Does the
fatal gene of "write endurance" built into
flash
solid state
disks prevent their deployment in intensive server acceleration
applications - such as RAID
systems? |
It was
certainly true as little as a few years ago.
What's the risk with
today's devices?
This article looks at the current generation of
products and calculates how much (or how little) you should be worried. |
 | |
| RAM based SSDs have been
used alongside RAID for years - but
flash SSDs are
physically smaller and have bigger capacity (160G in 2.5") and are lower
cost than RAM-SSDs and could actually be configured in standard RAID boxes.
F-SSDs aren't as fast as RAM based products but a single flash SSD can deliver
20,000 IOPs - which when scaled up in an array - starts to look interesting.
...read the
article,
storage reliability
solid state disks | |
| . |
|
|
| . |
Squeak! -
Why are Most Analysts Wrong About Solid State Disks?
Most
analysts and editors of other computer publications don't really understand the
solid state disk market.
They show their ignorance and naivete by
prefacing every discussion of SSDs with a superficial analysis which compares
the cost per byte of storage between flash and hard disk drives. That's the
wrong answer to the wrong question. And it's far removed from why the SSD market
is racing to become a multi billion dollar market seemingly in blithe ignorance
of the cost per byte proposition.
This article tells you what's
important to users and the main applications in which SSDs are already being
used and new applications where they will be used in the next 3 years. ...read the
article, Solid State Disks | |
| . |
 |
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 | |
| . |
|
|
| . |
|
|
|
Serial Attached SCSI - Delivering Flexibility to the
Data Center - article by LSI Logic and Maxtor
"SAS gains a
performance advantage through its support of multiple initiators, or the ability
to support I/O requests from more than one controller at a time. With dual ports
and multiple initiator support, SAS RAID arrays can implement dynamic load
balancing, allowing I/O requests to be evenly spread across multiple
controllers, leveraging the full processing power of all of them. Without this
capability, the I/O requests can become skewed, and overload one controller,
while the others may not be at full capacity. SATA technology does not
support this capability."
...read the article,
...LSI Logic profile,
...Maxtor profile,
Serial Attached SCSI | | |
