|
Founded in 2011, Proton Digital Systems provides
advanced strategic IP for the Flash Memory market. The company is based in
Silicon Valley and has brought together the best and brightest in the fields of
mathematics, signal processing, digital design, and high volume manufacturing to
deliver its cutting edge suite of IP Products.
- editor's comments:- December 2012 - Proton which has -
until recently - been in stealth mode - has developed technologies which have
been optimized for use in ECC and life stretching in flash memory systems.
You can view this as an important part of the "DSP part"
within the technologies which I've grouped together as
adaptive R/W
DSP IP for flash.
Proton outlined the capabilities of its
technologies in a paper presented at the Flash Memory (in August 2012) called -
LDPC
Compiler For NAND Flash and SSD Controllers (pdf).
Their IP set
can be implemented in ASIC, eASIC or FPGA and supports (among other things)
simultaneous support for several LDPC codes and on-the-fly switching from one
code to another - which has been tested in flash geometries down to 1Xnm. It
provides high performance - suitable for enterprise SSDs as well as having
applications in other markets.
What's this LDPC stuff you might ask? -
I found the most helpful introduction and guide to Low-Density
Parity-Check codes was a doctoral paper
Design
and Implementation of a message passing decoder for LDPC codes (pdf)
published in June 2000 by Jeremy Thorpe which is one of many resources
on his site www.ldpc-codes.com
As
in the case of DensBits
- Proton's most similarseeming competitor - these new technologies have value
for memory makers as well as designers of SSDs who want to get the
most efficient designs
out of currently available and future memory.
|
|
|
In December 2012 - Proton Digital Systems
announced
the immediate availability of its
LDPC
flash IP (a variant of
adaptive DSP
IP) for enterprise
storage applications compatible with implementation using
eASIC which
enables enterprise storage vendors to double the throughput performance at
approximately half the power that can be achieved using state-of–the art
FPGAs.
In February 2013 - Proton
announced the completion of
its $2 million seed round to support continued development and expansion of
its LDPC-based flash read channel IP products. |
| . |
 |
| . |
|
| |
.. |
SSD Reliability
adaptive R/W and
DSP IP in SSDs
sugaring MLC for the
enterprise
data
integrity challenges in flash SSDs
how to market flash
management care schemes for SSDs |
| .. |
| Proton gets funding to
rejuvenate flash |
Editor:- February 7, 2013 - Proton Digital Systems
today announced the
completion of its $2 million seed round to support continued development and
expansion of its LDPC-based flash read channel IP products that increase the
endurance
and longevity of
flash memory.
Protons IP is currently licensed for
enterprise and
consumer
applications and has already been adopted by some of the worlds largest flash
memory companies. | | |
| .. |
| Proton's enterprise flash
controller IP now available on eASIC |
Editor:- December 17, 2012 - Proton Digital Systems
today
announced
the immediate availability of an
LDPC
( Low Density Parity Check) NAND FLASH read channel for
enterprise storage
applications compatible with implementation using
eASIC which
enables enterprise storage vendors to double the throughput performance at
approximately half the power that can be achieved using state-ofthe art FPGAs.
The Proton Digital Systems LDPC read channel enables enterprise
FLASH storage system companies to leverage low cost MLC flash devices and
increase its longevity
to 45,000 program/erase cycles, compared to only 5,000 program/erase cycles
with
traditional
BCH algorithms.
We were keen to work with eASIC as we are
increasingly seeing eASIC devices being selected as platforms for enterprise
grade customized flash controllers, said Dr. Andrei Vityaev, CEO at
Proton Digital. In enterprise storage systems, production volumes are often not
high enough and the market changes are too dynamic to justify cell-based ASICs
but performance and low power requirements are beyond the capability of FPGAs.
This makes an eASIC
flash controller
solution ideal for this space.
Editor's comments:- this
adaptive
flash DSP technology enables oems to do the kind of things which
SMART and
STEC already do in
SAS SSDs, and which
Skyera does in its
rackmounts.
This type of technology will become essential for
fast-enough SSD makers to remain
efficient and
competitive in the next few years. The only other game in town for licensing
something similar right now - is
DensBits. | | |
| . |
| |
