new roles
for IDE / PATA SSDs
by
Zsolt Kerekes,
editor StorageSearch.com |
The positioning of the PATA SSD
market has changed a lot in the past 17 years.
For one thing, the
terminology has changed.
Back in
July 2000 -
when Silicon Storage
Technology launched a PATA SSD on a chip - they called it an "ADC"
(ATA-Disk Chip). In those days people didn't need to differentiate between PATA
and SATA - because the 1st working prototype SATA hard drive wasn't unveiled
till August 2000
- and the 1st SATA SSDs
didn't appear till 2005.
Today the main role of PATA SSDs is to replace
hard drives in legacy
embedded equipment systems which were designed before the widespread adoption
of SATA SSDs and
PCIe SSDs and which
may indeed have been originally designed to use
hard drives.
Finding
new replacement products (as spares or to elongate the market life of dedicated
equipment) can be a challenge for buyers today in industrial, medical and
military markets.
Some of these BOM issues are discussed in my article
-
when the socket fits but
the datasheet doesn't. | |
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July 2000 - in
SSD
history |
SST Launches PATA
SSD on a Chip
July 10, 2000 -
SST (Silicon
Storage Technology, Inc., today
announced
that it has entered the embedded mass data storage market with the introduction
of a flash memory-based ATA-Disk Chip (ADC) product family
Utilizing
the company's proprietary SuperFlash technology for the ATA controller, SST's
ADC is the industry's first ATA/IDE protocol-compatible solid-state mass data
storage product housed in a multi-chip packaged device. SST's ADC uses a
standard ATA/IDE protocol and can be used as a replacement for conventional IDE
hard disk drives.
The new product family is ideal for embedded mass
data storage applications that require low-power and high-performance yet at the
same time, smaller and more reliable mass data storage. These applications
include set-top boxes; thin client systems; network computers; Internet
appliances; PDAs, cellular phones, MP3 players; digital cameras and other
digital handheld devices.
SST's ADC family provides complete IDE hard
disk drive functionality and compatibility in a single device. The ADC has
built-in microcontroller
and file management firmware that supports the ATA standard interface. Because
SST's ADC supports the standard ATA-protocol, the host system does not require
additional or proprietary software, such as Flash File System (FFS) or Memory
Technology Driver (MTD) software to support the ADC. The ATA driver is a
standard part of all major operating systems such as Windows 95/98/2000/NT/CE,
MAC, Linux, UNIX, etc., and no additional BIOS or OS modification is necessary.
"...Our entry into the embedded mass data storage market allows
SST to target a potentially multi-billion dollar digital electronics market that
will benefit greatly from a semiconductor equivalent to a hard disk drive"
said Bing Yeh, president and CEO of SST.
SST's initial ADC products are packaged in a 32-pin DIP package and
are available in a range of capacities from 8 MByte to 64 MByte. SST's ADC
supports both 5.0V and 3.3V operation. | | |
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Even industries which
weren't expecting to use the newest generations of highest density 3D flash -
such as the industrial and military markets - have been hit by shortages in
mature planar (2D) memory. |
consequences
of the 2017 memory shortages | | |
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2005 -
start of SSDs transitioning to serial interfaces |
a vendor view from - Guy Freikorn, Product
Manager, Rugged Products, M-Systems.
from
the 2005
SSD Buyers Guide
"The SSD market has been shifting from
Parallel interfaces (PATA,
SCSI) to Serial
interfaces (SATA and
SAS).
Re new
applications:- Apple's iPOD Nano is using flash today! It shifted from HDD to
Flash. This will boom the flash industry in terms of pricing and flash
allocation, providing more flash awareness.
The gap in capacity between hard disk drives and flash SSDs is
narrowing. M-Systems offers an Ultra320 SCSI flash SSD product with 352GB
capacity." | | |
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February 2000 -
in
SSD market
history |
BiTMICRO unveils fast 18GB PATA SSD
February 15, 2000 -
BiTMICRO
unveiled the E-Disk ATE35 - the world's
fastest
3.5"
PATA SSD with 200
microseconds average access time, 11MB/s burst R/W transfer rates, and 9MB/s
sustained R/W. Capacity options ranged upto 19GB. | | | |