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Emulex's
16GFC tech supported by DataCore
Editor:- January 28, 2015 - Emulex today
announced that DataCore is
releasing target mode support in its new SANsymphony V10 software-defined
storage platform, for Emulex's Gen 5 (16GFC) HBA technology.
Western Digital invests in Skyera's MRAM supplier
Editor:-
January 26, 2015 - Western
Digital's investment unit was among the
investors in a $29
million series B funding round in Everspin Technologies
announced
today.
Phill LoPresti
President and CEO of Everspin said "With a leading worldwide foundry and
storage customer participating in Everspin's Series B investment round, the
entire industry spectrum is acknowledging ST-MRAM as the leading contender to
drive beyond the limits of current mainstream memory."
Editor's
comments:- Everspin's MRAM is
one
tier of the non volatile caching technology used in
Skyera's rackmount
SSD systems.
Western Digital
recently bought
Skyera - and my guess is that this investment in Everspin is to take out some of
the risk of future availability of these memory parts at a time when an assured
supply at higher volume may soon be needed.
Novachips acquires HLNAND patents and technology assets
Editor:-
January 26, 2015 - Novachips
today announced
it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire
HyperLink NAND fllash
memory technology assets, including approximately 260 related patents, from
Conversant
(formerly known as MOSAID).
Due to its low capacitance expansion
footprint - HLNAND enables large-capacity SSDs.
Novachips recently
unveiled an HLNAND-powered SSD controller that provides 16TB capacity, as
well as an HLSSD with 8TB capacity in a 2.5" form factor supporting PCIe
with NVMe host interface - using a single ASIC SSD controller in 28nm process
technology.
Tezzaron expects to ship ReRAM SSDs in 2016
Editor:-
January 23, 2015 - Tezzaron
Semiconductor recently
announced
it will use Rambus's
ReRAM technology in forthcoming storage-class 3D memory devices for military,
aerospace and commercial applications. The first of these designs is
scheduled for production in 2016.
So you want x3 (TLC) and 3D?
Editor:- January 23,
2015 - Even if you already thought that
adaptive R/W
and DSP was an essential way for getting usable SSDs out of smaller 2D nand
flash - then there are even more reasons for using this technology on the
journey into 3D.
That's the conclusion you'll come away with after
seeing DensBits's
paper (presented at the 2014 Flash
Memory Summit) called
the
Necessity for a Memory Modem in 3D Memories (pdf)
Among other
things in this paper:- DensBits says that the scope for inter-cell interference
grows from 8 identifiable routes in 2D to 26 for each cell in 3D.
But
memory modem technology (DensBits's branding for their collection of adaptive
R/W DSP IPs) will (over and above everything it already does for 2D)
intelligently decouple read operations according to the severity of read
operations expected in the new 3D architectures - and even supports the notion
of TLC (x3) within 3D. (Which "needs state of art decoder and signal
processing".)
Their conclusion? - Memory Modem technology is
required for 3D NAND scaling ...read
the article
PS - I know it's not new news - but I hadn't
mentioned this article before and I think this type of technology will have a
big impact on the SSD market in the next year or so as it weaves its way into
SSDs made by the licensees.
Diablo appeals shipment injunction
says court was misled
Editor:-
January 14, 2015 -
Diablo Technologies
today announced
that it has appealed the court ruling (reported earlier this week - and
initiated by Netlist)
which had granted a preliminary injunction to halt Diablo's shipments of Memory
Channel Storage based chipsets.
Diablo's appeal explains that the
ruling is based on an erroneous interpretation of the contract and a failure to
recognize the technology differences among the products involved.
Most
importantly, however, the court did not find that Diablo MCS uses
Netlist trade secrets.
Diablo says - to support the judgment, the
order effectively rewrites the language in the contract signed by the parties in
2008: the additional words included in the order changed the terms of the
contract significantly and imposed a new obligation that was not agreed between
the parties. In other words, there was no violation by Diablo of the original
contract. The court was misled about important technology distinctions:
The
court relied on Netlist's representation that their HyperCloud and Diablo MCS "are
used to perform the same function" which is not the case because the
HyperCloud is DRAM (memory) and Diablo MCS is a block storage device (disk).
The court also relied on Netlist's representation that the products
are competitive because they both "attach to the same memory channel."
Diablo
also says "Netlist equates the 2 devices simply because they use the same
location and i/o channel; extending that logic would equate all devices that
reside in PCIe slots, which would be a similarly erroneous claim."
"It is important that the facts of the case are well understood;
it should also be stressed that the court did not determine that Diablo uses
Netlist trade secrets," stated Riccardo
Badalone, CEO and co-founder of Diablo Technologies. "We offer an
innovative storage device that gives customers great performance advantages, but
with this injunction, the court is putting our company and our customers at
risk. With this appeal, we expect to reverse this decision and get back to
work."
Editor's comments:- are Netlist's products functionally
different to those using Diablo's architecture?
Yes! The differences
are so great that the 2 products are listed in different directories here on
StorageSearch.com
- Memory
Channel Storage SSDs - which encompasses low latency, fast flash SSDs which
plug into DIMM sockets and transfer data via interfaces which were originally
designed for DRAM.
- hybrid DIMMs, NV
DIMMs, flash backed DRAM DIMMs - which includes DRAM modules which
automatically save their contents when electrical power drops to an integrated
non volatile memory from which the data is reloaded after normal power is
restored.
The fact that standards organizations and some vendors have
historically used the term "flash DIMM" in the context of both types
of products - has contributed to industry confusion.
But the term -
flash DIMM - is a description of the physical form factor - and tells you
nothing about the operation and functionality of the device from a data
architecture point of view.
The differences are vast and immediately
obvious to anyone who's technical. But I was wondering how would I explain the
gulf of difference to someone who doesn't know anything about computer design.
My
analogy goes like this... Suppose someone offered you the choice of 2 types of
backpack when you started a balloon ride.
One is a parachute, the
other is a jetpack.
They both perform different functions - although -
until you activate their functions they both might look the same.
OK
I know you need a higher skillset to operate the jetpack.
And you
also need a much more developed
SSD software support
ecosystem to deploy memory channel SSDs too.
California Court halts sales of ULLtraDIMM SSDs
Editor:-
January 13, 2015 - Netlist
today
announced
that the US District Court for the Northern District of California has granted
Netlist's motion for a preliminary injunction against Diablo Technologies for
controller chips used by SanDisk
in its high-speed ULLtraDIMM SSD product line.
Under the court's
order, Diablo and SanDisk are prohibited from manufacturing and selling the
controller chipset used by SanDisk in the ULLtraDIMM and as a result, from
further sale or distribution of the ULLtraDIMM itself.
Judge Gonzalez
Rogers - also rejected SanDisk's motion for reconsideration, asking
that it be allowed to sell existing inventory of the enjoined products.
The court advanced the trial date to March 9, 2015, for Netlist's claims upon
which the motion was decided, including claims against Diablo for trade secret
misappropriation, breach of contract, and other causes of action related to the
components supplied by Diablo for the ULLtraDIMM.
The court's order
specifically identifies the ULLtraDIMM as well as the eXFlash modules from
IBM, although the
injunction affects all modules containing Diablo components.
Editor's
comments:- the possibility of such a injunction has been discussed in
these pages
before. At the heart of the dispute are whether an earlier design collaboration
between Netlist and Diablo included the rights for both companies to use a
critical interface design in the DIMM bus facing part of Diablo's memory channel
storage design. A patent ruling on
December 29, 2014
upheld Netlist's patents related to this.
The court case related to
the injunction stems from Netlist's argument that if Diablo did not have the
right to use the interface technology - then it follows that any design - such
as the ULLtraDIMM SSD - which relies on such internal technology - should only
be disallowed - pending any future agreement about licensing such a technology.
(Which it may not choose to do.)
Netlist
wants to create a low latency memory channel SSD product line of its own.
And even though Netlist is more than a year behind the productization
of this integrated technology (compared to the first generation ULLtraDIMM
designed Diablo and
SMART Storage -
which was acquired by SanDisk) the case from Netlist is that the market must
wait for its own design or any designs for which it grants licenses.
From
the Diablo side - its argument has been that they thought they had an
agreement which allowed them to use the DIMM interface technology (in whose
implementation they participated) in products which were different to Netlist's
flash backed DIMMs.
At
stake is a future market for server based accelerators which could be worth a
low double digit percentage of the entire
enterprise PCIe SSD market.
It's
inconceivable that a small company like Netlist or Diablo would be able to
satisfy such demands on their own - especially given the fact that neither has
any core IP related to
enterprise flash.
But future licensing partners (or wouldbe
acquirers) need to be satisfied that the core technology they're using - is
patent troll proof.
Greenliant enters enterprise PCIe SSD market
Editor:-
January 12, 2015 - Greenliant
Systems - has entered the entry level enterprise
NVME PCIe SSD market -
with the
launch
of its new G7100 (pdf)
series MLC gen 2 x4 PCIe SSDs - upto 2.75 TB raw capacity, Full Height, Half
Length form factor, 130K / 60K
R/W IOPS,
and endurance
of upto 10 DWPD for 5
years.
Internally
Greenliant's new PCIe SSD has a
RAID protected array of
miniature NANDrive SSDs which use the company's own controllers.
"Leveraging
our in-depth flash memory knowledge and volume-proven NAND controller expertise,
Greenliant is addressing the industry's increasing need for higher reliability,
higher performance and larger capacity flash-based storage solutions," said
Bing Yeh,
CEO of Greenliant Systems.
Editor's comments:- ever since the
company was founded - in 2010 - Greenliant's focus has been on the
industrial and
embedded SSD market. So it's surprising to see this new product aimed at
the "enterprise" market. However it's part of an
emerging
trend in the market.
SanDisk spins off NexGen
Editor:- January 8, 2015 -
SanDisk today
clarified that "Hybrid systems incorporating hard-disk drives are not part
of SanDisk's strategic focus."
This
strategy direction statement by Sumit Sadana, executive
VP and chief strategy officer, SanDisk was part of an
announcement
today that SanDisk has completed the spin-out of Fusion-io's
ioControl (hybrid SSD systems) business as a separate company called NexGen Storage.
SanDisk
has agreed to be a supplier of
PCIe flash storage
technology to NexGen but will not maintain an ownership interest.
NexGen
will be led by John
Spiers who was co-founder and CEO of the original NexGen company before
its acquisition
by Fusion-io in April
2013 (for $119 million).
Editor's comments:- In
retrospect Fusion-io's acquisition of NexGen was a mistake.
Fusion
didn't have enough cash or people resources to invest in bootstrapping 2
entirely new systems businesses (one in the fast SSD rackmount market, and the
other (based on NexGen) in the
hybrid SSD appliance
market) at a time when both markets were already becoming much more
specialized
and differentiated.
Can NexGen succeed as a standalone company?
Hundreds of other companies are also competing in the hybrid market
- so you can ask them. Most likely NexGen will get acquired again.
Toshiba shows early version of BGA PCIe SSD
Editor:-
January 7, 2015 - Toshiba
announced
it will showcase a prototype of the world's first PCIe single package SSD -
with up to 256GB in a single BGA package at
CES this week. The NVMe compatible device
fits into 16mm x 20mm x 1.65mm and weighs under 1g. See also:-
BGA SSDs,
PCIe SSDs
InnoDisk's ServerDOM wins excellence award
Editor:-
January 7, 2015 - InnoDisk
today
announced
it has received the 2015
Taiwan Excellence Award for its
ServerDOM
(SATA SSD) which can
be used as a boot drive in 1U servers.
Internal
storage space for enterprise servers is a precious resource. InnoDisk's
ServerDOM (20mm x 31mm x 7mm) fits onto the
SATA connector of
modern enterprise servers (from which it draws power). A 2nd failover drive can
be snugly fitted - as shown above - if needed for
HA
applications.
Samsung mass producing gen 3 PCIe SSDs for notebooks
Editor:-
January 7, 2015 - 19 months after launching its first M.2 PCIe gen 2 SSDs
aimed at the
notebook
market (the
XP941
(pdf) in June
2013) - Samsung
said it is now mass producing the follow-up SM951 - which supports gen 3
PCIe.
Samsung
says - "For ultra-slim notebooks and workstations the SM951 can read and
write sequentially at 2,150MB/s and 1,550 MB/s respectively..."
The
SM951 is the first SSD to adopt L1.2 low power standby mode (the
PCIe SSD equivalent of
the power saving
devsleep
mode in SATA SSDs) .
When hibernating in
L1.2
mode, the SM951's power consumption is less than 2mW.
Cactus
SSDs helped over 100,000 drivers avoid getting lost
Editor:-
January 6, 2015 - Cactus
Technologies today
disclosed
it has shipped over 100,000 units of its
210
Series (32GB MLC) - 2.5"
PATA SSDs - to a
German automotive OEM company for use in their infotainment (integrated audio
entertainment and GPS navigation) systems.
OCZ unveils new controller
Editor:- January 5, 2015
-
OCZ
said
it would showcase its new JetExpress SSD controller this week at
CES.
JetExpress will be the
heart and soul of OCZ's future product line. JetExpress silicon is native SATA
and PCIe/NVMe and will support multiple form factors including M.2, 2.5-inch
SATA, and SFF-8639 which enables
PCI Express speeds in
a compact 2.5-inch form factor.
Web-Feet sizes 2015 industrial SSD market
Editor:-
January 4, 2015 - Help is available if you're trying to grapple with estimating
the size and likely shape of the
industrial SSD
market.
Web-Feet
Research today
anounced
it has released a report ($5,550) which includes forecasts for Industrial
Markets and Applications.
What's
in it? Among other things - the report's author Alan Niebel
says... "Within each of the 6 commercial sub-markets:
Networking/Telecom, Connected Home, Automotive, Industrial, Medical, and
Avionics/Aerospace/Military the forecast of SSDs, Embedded Flash Drives (EFD),
and Flash Cards are quantified for over 40 end-use applications. This forecast
provides a separate breakout for SSDs by form factor including modules and
another section for EFDs and Flash Cards by form factor for units and average
capacity and revenue. Geographic splits are also included."
WD demonstrates 3.5" PCIe hybrid HDD
Editor:-
January 2, 2015 - "WD is committed to working with the industry to push
the boundaries of what you might expect from a traditional
hard drive," said
Matt
Rutledge, senior VP , Storage Technology, WD recently as the company
previewed
the demonstration of a prototype 3.5"
SATAe
hybrid drive.
WD's 4TB 3.5" hybrid hard drive includes upto 128GB flash cache
and looks like a single volume to the application.
what's up and upcoming at StorageSearch.com?
Editor:-
January 1, 2015 - SSD readership and article downloads on StorageSearch.com increased 10%
and 20% respectively in December 2014 compared to the year ago period.
While it's nice for me that both are up - it's better that stickiness is up
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In retrospect Fusion-io's acquisition of NexGen was a mistake.
SanDisk spins off NexGen (January 8, 2015) |
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