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SSD Controllers and IP

Here below - you'll see a directory of 30 SSD IP companies, news and articles.

SSD Reliability
this way to the Petabyte SSD
sugaring MLC for the enterprise
Bad block management in flash SSDs
3 easy ways to enter the SSD Market
other storage chips (excluding memory)
Why size matters in SSD design architecture
Data Integrity Challenges in flash SSD Design
Key Challenges in SSD Controller Development
"SSD Controllers / IP define the personality of the SSD"
says editor - Zsolt Kerekes "Controller architecture and effective implementation processes transform unreliable me-too flash memory chips into the diverse range of application optimized SSDs that you can see in the market today."
.
Violin video re visibility advantages of home grown controllers

Editor:- January 23, 2012 - I commented recently that the top 10 SSD companies in Q4 2011 all had one thing in common (apart from the fact they make SSDs) - they all had their own proprietary SSD controller architecture which they could use to optimize products for some application markets (even if some of them also used other controllers too).

In a recent video - Violin's, CTO Software Jonathan Goldick talks about the benefits they get from having their own controller.

I like it because it also echoes themes I discussed last year in my big versus small SSD architecture article - and also because it's short - less than 250 seconds. ...watch Violin's SSD video


BiTMICRO's new SSD controller nearly ready

Editor:- January 17, 2012 - BiTMICRO has named its new SSD controller - which has just gone through tape-out.

It's called TALINO-DE - Translation and Linking of I/O Nodes -Device Edition. - Not very catchy - but all the best SSD names have gone.

The multi-core TALINO-DE is big SSD architecture (manages hundreds of flash chips) and includes full data path protection, end-to-end data integrity, embedded AES engines for data security, embedded XOR engines for delivering faster transaction processing in RAID configurations, power management, and other resource optimization.

Editor's comments:- the new controller appears to be in a similar conceptual class to those which have been shipping in some PCIe SSDs from TMS and Virident for example - although these in turn are very different - starting at the RAM cache basics (TMS designs range from regular to fat, whereas Virident is skinny.)

If the new BiTMICRO controller lives up to its promise - and if it's marketed as a merchant chip set - it could lead to a commoditization of PCIe and rackmount SSDs similar to the effect SandForce had on the enterprise 2.5" SSD market.


OCZ turns to Marvell controller for newest PCIe SSD

Editor:- January 9, 2012 - at the Storage Visions 2012 Conference today OCZ is demonstrating new PCIe SSDs - which use SSD controllers jointly developed with Marvell (instead of - as in previous models - controllers from SandForce).

Editor's comments:- if anyone wondered how OCZ would retain its positioning in the PCIe SSD market - relative to competitor LSI - following the latter's acquisition of SandForce - this anouncement is the answer. OCZ also has its own controller line - acquired from Indilinx.

There are plenty of SSD controller designs in the market - and SSD designers have a lot of freedom to choose what works best for particular markets at different times.


NVMe compliant IP core aims at PCIe SSD designers

Editor:- January 6, 2012 - IP-Maker released a data transfer manager core - for use in PCIe SSD designs fitting between the media and the flash controller. The design is compliant with the NVM Express specification.

PCIe SSD manufacturers will benefit from a performance increase thanks to the IP-Maker NVMe IP core says Mickaël Guyard, Product Marketing Director at IP-Maker. This efficient DMA manager ensures the data flow up to the NandFlash, therefore off-loading the motherboard CPU.


SandForce joins LSI's new Flash Components Division

Editor:- January 4, 2012 - LSI today announced it has completed the acquisition of SandForce.

Editor's comments:- most of the leading companies in the earth shaking PCIe SSD market use large architecture controllers or software - which provides cost and efficiency advantages when you compare usable capacities with maximun fault protection enabled.

That puts competitors who use small SSD architecture (such as OCZ and Seagate - who use SandForce's controller - and STEC which has yet to establish a stronghold in this market with its own ASIC) at a potential disadvantage as capacities scale up.

One of the design challenges for LSI will be to see if they can extract the proven flash management features in past SandForce controllers and scale them up to support bigger capacities and faster throughput without adding latency penalties (which currently accrue with arrays of SFPs) or which uses a new processor core or split controller architecture to better support larger flash chip populations.


Apple acquires Anobit

Editor:- December 21, 2011 - Apple has acquired Anobit for a sum thought to be in the range $400 to $500 million.


SandForce enables enterprise oems to tweak the flash capacity iceberg

Editor:- December 12, 2011 -SandForce today announced it is sampling a new SSD controller - the SF-2481 - which provides increased data security and integrity features compared to earlier models from the company.

Editor's comments:- the new SandForce controllers are aimed at enterprise bulk storage applications / cloud storage. Performance is about the same as before - and the encryption strength is better - but the 2 main differences are:-
  • New improved media health test diagnostics.
The over provisioning feature is a key parameter which directly impacts the competitiveness of the oems who deploy SSDs with SF controllers - who can now decide for themselves how they want to adjust the flash in their systems between reliability - coping for endurance at high IOPS - or cost effectiveness in lower IOPS systems - where the SSD is being used in a large storage array to replace HDD storage.

Previous models of SF controllers hard coded this parameter - which meant that arrays of (small architecture) SF inside SSDs were uncompetitive compared to big architecture SSD systems from Violin or Texas Memory Systems.

If you're selling a controller which can go into such a diverse range of apps - it's impossible for the controller designer to choose a single set up which is best for all apps. Fusion-io has always enabled its oem partners to tweak this paramater in its PCIe SSDs. My headline comes from the article flash SSD capacity - the iceberg syndrome which discusses these tradeoffs in more detail.


new article compares SSD controllers to SSD ASAPs

Editor:- December 8, 2011 - continuing the series - Who's who in SSD? - I've written a new article today about FlashSoft.

There are analagies between the SSD controller and auto-tiering IP market - in addition to the obvious technical overlaps already seen in some products.


STEC vs OCZ's new SAS SSDs

Editor:- November 29, 2011 - STEC and OCZ both announced today they are sampling new fast SAS SSDs using different controllers.

How can you compare such superficially similar - but in reality quite different - products?

Just be glad if it's not you doing the comparing. ...more on SSD news


BiTMICRO nurtures microchip design training in Philippines

Editor:- October 25, 2011 - the Bruce Institute of Technology is a new training institute in the Philippines - focused on microchip design - which has been set up in a collaborated effort led by BiTMICRO in partnership with Synopsys, Cadence and leading universtities.

The name celebrates the family name of the Bruce brothers - who founded BiTMICRO in 1995 as an ASIC design consultancy - before embarking on their pioneering market developments in flash SSDs.


Viking ships nv 8GB DDR3 DIMM

Editor:- October 18, 2011 - Viking said it is shipping an extension of their nv module range.

The DDR3 ArxCis-NV plugs into standard RAM sockets and provides 2GB to 8GB RAM which is backed up to SLC flash in the event of a power failure - while the memory power is held up by an optional external 25F supercap pack. Viking says these new memory modules can eliminate the need for battery backup units in servers and the maintenance logistics associated with maintaining them. They are specified as being maintenance free for "5 years @ 60C".

Editor's comments:- will these new modules replace batteries in RAM SSDs? - I doubt it - because of scalability issues - like managing a spiderweb of 100+ dangly bits of wire when you have a terabyte of RAM. Having said that - there are many applications which only use a small number of memory chips which could benefit from such a product.


Hybrid Memory Cube will enable Petabyte SSDs

Editor:- October 7, 2011 - Samsung and Micron this week launched an new industry initiative - the Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium - which will standardize a new module architecture for memory chips - enabling greater density, faster bandwidth and lower power.

"HMC is unlike anything currently on the radar," said Robert Feurle, Micron's VP for DRAM Marketing. "HMC brings a new level of capability to memory that provides exponential performance and efficiency gains that will redefine the future of memory."

Editor's comments:- HMC may enable SSD designers to pack 10x more RAM capacity into the same space with upto 15x the bandwidth, while using 1/3 the power due to its integrated power management plane.

The same technology will enable denser flash SSDs too - if flash is still around in 3 years' time and hasn't been sucked into the obsolete market slime pit by the lurking nv demons which have been shadowing flash for the past 10 years and been waiting for each "next generation" to stumble and be the last.

The power management architecture integrated in HMC and the density scaling it allows for packing memory chips (without heat build-up) are key technology enablers which were listed as some of the problems the SSD industry needed to solve in my 2010 article - this way to the Petabyte SSD.


Hyperstone's new controller enables low power skinny SSDs

Editor:- August 3, 2011 - Hyperstone today introduced their new A2 family of SSD controllers - designed to enable physically small, very low power consumption industrial SATA skinny flash SSDs.

Features include:- upto 130MB/s sustained write performance and 600 4K random write IOPS, NCQ, power down detection for increased power cycling robustness, typical active current consumption at 25C with 100% utilization during stress test operating 4 x 3.3V NAND Flashes of about 250mA, SATA partial/slumber (about 150mA) and CFast PHYSLP (about 5mA) power modes supported.

"Our A2 available in a 9x9x1.2mm TFBGA 201 is probably the smallest and most power efficient 4-channel SATA controller in the market," said Mark Gunyuzlu, President of Hyperstone Inc., USA. "We can now provide SATA performance, industrial reliability and ruggedness for smaller form factor systems without requiring any volatile memory prone to power fail issues. We also expect we are delivering the best possible random read/write performance without relying on a DRAM, which is ideal for embedded applications."

Editor's comments:- this is the other end of the performance scale from the fastest SSDs which enterprise users are used to reading about. Low power embedded systems can't afford the luxury of the low slew rate (fat caps) power supplies you see in datacenters. And many commercial SSDs can get trashed and corrupted in less than an hour if they're mistakenly deployed in such systems. Putting the power fail detection inside the SSD and having no external RAM is just one of many patented design techniques which specialist companies like Hyperstone use in their quest to provide failsafe protection against power line induced data corruption.


OCZ elevates performance of Indilinx SSD controllers

Editor:- July 21, 2011 - OCZ is now sampling a new dual core ARM based SSD controller for 6Gbps SATA SSDs which can deliver upto 500MB/s sequential throughput and 200 mega transfers per second. The Indilinx Everest platform supports up to 1x nm NAND Flash with 1, 2, or 3 bits per cell, has 70 bits of BCH ECC per sector, end to end data protection, fast boot options (50% faster than competing SSDs) and enhanced power fail protection. The new platform - supports 1TB flash capacity and has a 400MHz DDR3 DRAM cache interface with support for up to 512MB.

Editor's comments:- ever since I wrote my Petabyte SSD roadmap article in March 2010 I've been waiting for controller manufacturers to start mentioning faster boot times in their press releases. There's a long way to go from what we have now - and the 20 milli-second range boot times needed to support what I call SSD library devices - but any step in electronic system design away from the Newtonian mechanical inertial corsets of hard drives towards the freer flowing boundaries set by quantum semiconductors is progress.

Why will the SSD industry need ultra-fast faster boot times? They don't need to boot that fast for netbooks. But the power consumption of a 1U multi-petabyte archive storage rack will be too high (and too hot) unless 90% of the SSDs are normally unpowered.


is STEC better placed for 1X nm nand SSDs than those relying on eMLC?

Editor:- July 20, 2011 - STEC held a conference call earlier this week hosted by financial analyst Stifel Nicolaus. Here are some higlights:-
  • shrinks from 34nm to 1X nm - STEC will get early physical models and samples of 1X nm nand flash at the the end of this year.
  • ECC - STEC says traditional BCH error codes aren't viable for future MLC flash generations because they would need 100 / 300 bit codes for consumer / server apps. In the server case - the error codes could useup 30-40% of the original capacity
  • eMLC vs STEC MLC. STEC said it has 2 dozen pending patents on its MLC protection technology (called Cellcare) - which works with consumer MLC. STEC says its MLC technology provides better operating life and more even performance in SSDs than higher priced enterprise MLC. STEC says that the tweaks and selections done by flash memory makers to produce eMLC won't scale to future generations.

    STEC also said that eMLC doesn't guarantee an operating life which is as long as its Cellcare - and some SSD makers may find they don't have a long term future in the market - due to a combination of wear-out / performance degradation that will affect customers - and due to the fact that eMLC isn't scalable. You can be sure this is going to develop into a marketing claims pissing war - which will make anything you previoulsy heard about MLC vs SLC seem much simpler and tamer in comparision.
...more highlights from the conference call


How big was the thinking in the SSD design?

Editor:- July 5, 2011 - Why size really does matter in SSD design architecture is a new article recently published on StorageSearch.com

For designers, integrators, end users and investors - understanding what follows from simple Big versus Small architectural choices predicts a lot of important consequences. ...read the article


flash SSD capacity - the iceberg syndrome

Editor:- June 22, 2011 - have you ever wondered how the amount of flash inside a flash SSD compares to the capacity shown on the invoice?

StorageSearch.com recently published a new article - flash SSD capacity - the iceberg syndrome .

What you see isn't always what you get. There can be huge variations in different designs as vendors leverage capacity to tweak key performance and reliability parameters. ...read the article


optimizing SSD design to cope with flash plane errors

Editor:- May 26, 2011 - a new slant on SSD reliability architectures is revealed today by Texas Memory Systems who explained how their patented Variable Stripe RAID technology is used in their recently launched PCIe SSD card - the RamSan-70.

TMS does a 1 month burn-in of flash memory prior to shipment. (One of the reasons cited for its use of SLC rather than MLC BTW.) Through its QA processes the company has acquired real-world failure data for several generations of flash memory and used this to model and characterize the failure modes which occur in high IOPs SSDs. ...click to read more


SanDisk pays $300 million for Lightning SSD controller

Editor:- May 16, 2011 - SanDisk announced a definitive agreement to acquire Pliant Technology for approximately $327 million.

Editor's comments:- I had some time ago made these strong comments in the profile pages of the respective companies.

"As I see it Pliant's current business model is not sustainable as it has a very narrow channel into the enterprise SSD market which can easily be choked off by slot substitution." and

"Despite occasional talk about "enterprise SSDs" - SanDisk is culturally rooted in the consumer electronics market. That's a very competitive market in which few companies are making profits."

This acquisition theoretically fixes complimentary strategic weaknesses for both companies:- Pliant (no customers) and SanDisk (no enterprise IP).


STEC shifts from FPGAs to ASICs in ZeusIOPS

Editor:- May 10, 2011 - STEC announced it will transition the hardware used in its high performance ZeusIOPS (2.5" and 3.5") SSDs from a dependence on FPGAs to ASICs. And the same ASIC design will be used in new PCIe SSDs later this year.

STEC also announced that its revenue in the most recent quarter was back in alignment with the growth rates for the enterprise SSD market - following a decline in the preceding year attributed to over stocking by its biggest customer EMC.


Anobit sources vital analog IP for SSDs

Editor:- April 12, 2011 - Anobit today announced it has licensed IP cores from Cosmic Circuits for several of its SoCs.

The analog IPs which consisted of linear regulators, a power-on-reset and a silicon oscillator (with integrated clock multiplier) were implemented in 65nm CMOS process. These IPs were integrated into Anobit's flash memory controllers to enhance reliability and performance.

Kobi Blechman, VP R&D at Anobit said, "We had a need for a diverse set of IPs, and were looking for a supplier who had proven expertise in each of these areas. Cosmic fit the bill perfectly. With the strong support provided by their team, we were also able to quickly address any integration issues, making the process smooth and seamless."

Editor's comments:- although this press release only gives partial details of the IP supplied (which relate to managing sudden SSD power loss) I'm also guessing that Cosmic's ADC technology might also be in the mix.

Anobit uses DSP techniques to get better discrimination of the state represented by stored charge in MLC flash. Sampling that charge itself is an error prone process - but the "disturbance noise" filtering by DSP can produce more reliable results if you can improve the ADC's resolution or repeatability. Even a small incremental improvement or tweak in design at this end can produce dramatic increases in data integrity.


OCZ acquires Indilinx

Editor:- March 14, 2011 - OCZ today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Indilinx for for approximately $32 million of OCZ common stock.

Indilinx controllers have been deployed within OCZ's SSD products since December 2008, and are currently featured in the Z-Drive series of PCIe-based SSDs. Indilinx's technology is expected to enable OCZ to expand its presence into the embedded, hybrid storage, and industrial markets. OCZ will gain substantial intellectual property from Indilinx including approximately 20 patents and patent applications related exclusively to the business as part of the transaction.

Following its acquisition by OCZ, Indilinx will continue to produce and supply its line of controller products to SSD manufacturers and OEMs on a global basis. The Indilinx controller business, and its 45 employees, will remain intact under the leadership of Bumsoo Kim, the founder and President of Indilinx, and Hyunmo Chung, Indilinx's CTO. OCZ will continue its own R&D program to develop new proprietary technologies and products to expand its own solid state drive offerings. The Indilinx acquisition notwithstanding, OCZ plans to continue utilizing controllers from other manufacturers including long-term partner SandForce, who currently supplies SSD processors for a wide range of the Company's SSD products including the Vertex 2, Agility 2, RevoDrive, customizable Deneva enterprise drives, and the upcoming Vertex 3 family of SSDs.

"This transaction is an important step in OCZ's strategy and significantly enhances our ability to capitalize on the worldwide demand for Solid State Drives," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology Group. "This combination brings together 2 organizations that are committed to advancing solid state drive design, and provides a unique opportunity for OCZ to increase both customer and shareholder value as well as expand our reach into embedded markets."

Editor's comments:- this announcement will send ripples throughout the SSD industry. OCZ has been one of the most successful SSD companies at growing sales revenue by filling the gap in the mid market for fast (but not too insanely fast) and affordable SSDs.

I had previously said that the most significant gap in OCZ's profile (given its revenue and comparing it to its peers in the top SSD companies list) was IP. Acquiring an SSD controller company is an astute move. In the medium term it will enable OCZ to influence product features to maximize the fit to user market needs which OCZ has been so adept at spotting. The newly acquired patent base will also provide horse trading and licensing revenue opportunities in the long term.See also:- 3 Easy Ways to Enter the SSD Market


Anobit ships new 3-bits-per-cell flash SSD controller

Editor:- March 8, 2011 - Anobit announced today that it has commenced high volume production of its MSP2020 NAND flash memory controller in cooperation with Hynix Semiconductor.

The MSP2020 controller enables the use of commercial-grade 2-bits-per-cell and 3-bits-per-cell NAND flash across all of the latest process nodes, within endurance- and performance-intensive embedded computing applications. MSP2020 controllers support up to 2 ONFI-compliant NAND interfaces to a host processor, and can support product configurations from 4GBs to 128GBs.

In the span of just 5 years, the endurance of mainstream NAND flash has plummeted from 100,000 program/erase cycles to approximately 3,000 cycles, and the industry push toward 3-bit-per-cell MLC NAND will place further downward pressure on NAND endurance. In parallel, mobile computing devices will continue to fuel demand for higher NAND endurance and performance, said Gregory Wong, founder and principal analyst, Forward Insights. Anobit's innovative MSP technology is well positioned to close the NAND endurance gap, and in so doing, help fuel the proliferation of NAND flash memory into a variety of consumer electronics and computing markets.


Intel launches Marvell inside SSD

Editor:- February 28, 2011 -Intel launched the SSD 510 - a 2.5" SATA 3 MLC SSD with 250GB capacity and upto 315MB/s sequential write performance which used an SSD controller from Marvell inside.

Atypically this product launch was not followed (a week later) by the traditional recall / firmware upgrades which had accompanied previous Intel driven SSDs.


new SandForce SSD controller has adaptive consumer features

Editor:- February 25, 2011 - SandForce today announced availability of its 2nd generation SF-2200 processors optimized for SSDs deployed in client computing applications.

This enables SSD makers to deliver 500MB/s R/W throughput (6Gbps SATA) and 20K sustained and 60K burst IOPS - and are compatible with newly available ONFi2 and toggle flash memory from all major suppliers.

Editor's comments:- enterprise SSD designers were able to get this type of performance from SandForce driven SSDs last year. But the new SSD controllers are lower cost and include many oem adaptable features which are particularly suited for consumer applications - as I learned from talking to SandForce's Product Marketing Director Kent Smith yesterday.

The first interesting thing is the IOPS. You can get the random IOPS performance even when connected to a 3Gbps SATA host. So that makes it a worthwhile upgrade to many existing designs. The way the burst IOPS works is interesting too. In the enterprise chip the 60K IOPS is sustainable - but in the consumer product SandForce has tuned the design so that users can get upto 60K IOPS for about 30 to 40 seconds - then performance drops down to 20K. But after another 40 seconds the burst rate comes back again. This cycling can continue indefinitely. For many applications - which are peaky in nature - this will be good enough - and cheaper than alternatives.

The next new feature in this controller is that the SSD designer can control the power consumption of the chip - by presetting a single code. The SF processor is clever enough to optimize its performance upto the set wattage. That make it easier to design battery operated products which stay within a specified battery operating time - yet still give fast performance.

Another new feature is the ability for SSD designers who want to get good performance in cost sensitive consumer apps - is the ability to remove the RAISE (RAID for chips) feature. In entry level SSDs this provides significantly more usable capacity. Error checking etc remains unchanged - in fact it has been improved in the 2nd generation chips - but the SSD won't survive the failure of a whole memory chip as it can do with the feature enabled.


what happens in SSDs when power goes down? - and why you should care

Editor:- February 24, 2011 - StorageSearch.com today published a new article - SSD power is going down! - which surveys power down management design factors in SSDs.

Why should you care what happens in an SSD when the power goes down?

This important design feature - which barely rates a mention in most SSD datasheets and press releases - is really important in determining SSD data integrity and operational reliability.

This article will help you understand why some SSDs which work perfectly well in one type of application might fail in others... even when the changes in the operational environment appear to be negligible. If you thought endurance was the end of the SSD reliability story - think again. ...read the article


will Micron's enhanced flash memory really eliminate error concerns?

Editor:- December 3, 2010 - Micron recently announced availability of enhanced 16GB to 64GB 25nm MLC flash memory chips with integrated error management - which the company says - removes the burden of ECC from the host and simplifies the use of flash in enterpise apps.

"The pace of NAND scaling is largely responsible for the incredible growth and success the industry has seen to date, and for helping to create new flash-based storage solutions," said Glen Hawk, VP of Micron's NAND Solutions Group. "While the advantages in NAND scaling are evident, so are the challenges with the technology becoming increasingly more difficult to manage. Micron's ClearNAND products remove this management burden for our customers and extend the life of this all-important technology."

Editor's comments:- as discussed in my recent article - bad block management in flash SSDs good blocks and less good blocks have always coexisted in flash memory. But as device geometries shrink (to increase capacity and speed) the margin of error between usable and non usable cells has shrunk too. In practical terms this means that the raw media quaility of new flash chips has declined in the past decade from under 1% defects, then 2%, 5% and I've seen projections as high as 10% for emerging MLC.

Managing these defects (which in theory are isolated and can be quarantined by vrtual address management techniques) is just one of the many data integrity challenges which SSD controller designers have to work with.

What is not generally appreciated is that it takes a lot of work and experience with the raw flash to create a model which you think represents how these bad bits will be distributed inside the chip population over time. The ECC designer's job is to create a correction model which gives the best data outcomes - given the raw material with which they have to work. Different designers may choose different strategies based on their intellectual understanding of the problem, patent portfolio, the market the SSD is designed for and other constraints.

If you could clone a bunch of flash chips and place them in 3 different SSD designs - the lifetime of those 3 SSDs would vary significantly - even running the same application and identical data. The difference would be due to how well the controller designers matched their management techniques to the decaying processes in the flash array.

By burying some of the ECC stuff inside the flash chip - Micron makes it easier for SSD designers to create an SSD which looks good when it is new. But it also introduces another risk factor - because if Micron get their models wrong - then many SSD designs may fail much earlier than predicted. That's always been true in the past too. In 5 years time we'll know better which designers got it right and which didn't.

In the distant past I used to design measuring instruments which pushed technology boundaries - and an important part of making them work was creating and testing error budget models - over time. Then in the process control world as now in SSDs - physics and chemistry are the realities which can rudely interrupt all your carefully contrived plans. Sometimes you're lucky it happens in the lab, or the test sites, but when there's a disagreement between the concept and the real world - reality always wins - reality is not a compliant servant and doesn't always fit snugly within the urgency of marketing plans.


new book - Inside NAND Flash

Editor:- November 17, 2010 - Forward Insights (an SSD analyst company) is one of the contributers to a new book called - Inside NAND Flash Memories.

The publishers say that SSD designers must understand flash technology in order to exploit its benefits and countermeasure its weaknesses. The new book is a comprehensive guide to the NAND world - from circuits design (analog and digital) to reliability.


Intel invests in SSD controller company

Editor:- November 16, 2010 - Anobit today announced that it closed a new funding round of $32 million led by Intel Capital - bringing Anobit's total funding to over $70 million.

Editor's comments:- unlike another well known SSD controller company - Anobit is a company which until today has been known by a very small number of analysts - and competitors and maybe even some SSD companies who might be using their products. I'm sure that - as a result of today's announcement - they will get better known too.


pushing the SSD testing rock farther up the hill

Editor:- August 25, 2010 - I'm mostly resistant to the idea of rehashing recent news stories - but yesterday while talking about new SSD technologies a reader asked me to take another look at SNIA's SSD performance testing guidelines - which I reported on a month ago.

I said I had been surprised it took ORGs like SNIA so long to look at these issues - because I had been aware of "Halo effects" in flash SSD benchymarks for years - and commented - "But I guess member led ORGs have a built in lag factor and only move at the speed of the slowest exec members."

The reader - Neal Ekker - whom I knew from his time at Texas Memory Systems - put up a spirited defense for this particular ORG opus and said...

""...We've all known about the fishy-ness of SSD performance claims for years. But I'd like to draw attention to what an impressive accomplishment the SNIA SSS PTS represents, no matter its technical merits or ramifications. I watched it happen, and I can tell you it was an amazing POLITICAL achievement. And I don't mean that in a negative way. Any time there's more than one person in a room, there's politics. For a collection of engineers representing both their own egos and the interests of their employers to finally agree on even this rather bare-bones beginning standard was just remarkable to observe. I can't begin to give enough credit to some of the chief movers and shakers.

Neal Ekker added - "This is why I want more attention focused on the SSS PTS right now, so we don't lose momentum entirely. There's still plenty of work to be done. We need additional companies and fresh faces and energies to step up and push this rock a little farther up the hill."

Editor's comments:- During the majority of the SSS PTS development Neal Ekker served as the SNIA SSSI Education Committee Chair. He's now a for-hire independent SSD marketing consultant. ...Neal's bio, ...SSS PTS (pdf), Storage People


Samsung and Seagate to codevelop SSD controllers

Editor:- August 13, 2010 - Samsung and Seagate - recently announced they will jointly develop SSD controller technologies to operate with Samsung's 30nm-class MLC NAND.

The jointly developed controller will be utilized in Seagate's enterprise-class SSDs.

Editor's comments:- despite being a keen advocate for solid state storage since 2005 - Samsung has never had the IP it takes to develop best in breed enterprise SSDs. Seagate, a relative newbie in the SSD market, doesn't have SSD IP either - but it does have hard disk interface experience.

Developing (or acquiring) its own SSD IP has always been desirable for Seagate. The new agreement also helps to explain why the company was not happy to confirm industry reports that its 1st SSD actually used SoCs from SandForce.

Will the 2 companies be able to develop world beating SSD controller technology?

In my long experience of talking to people in companies which do have strong and unique SSD architectures - I have got the impression that a successful enterprise SSD design needs:- unity of purpose, very strong technical leadership, good sense of market direction, and years of fine tuning design iterations.

I don't think that an inter company collaboration like Samsung and Seagate can achieve the NO-COMPROMISE design decisions which are needed to develop world beating enterprise SSD architectures - no matter how talented individuals in the engineering pool may be.


SNIA publishes draft SSD performance testing doc

Editor:- July 12, 2010 - SNIA today announced the availability of its Solid State Storage Performance Test Specification (version 0.9) for public review.

A typical flash SSD taken "fresh out of the box" and exposed to a workload, experiences a brief period of elevated performance, followed by a period of transition to an eventual performance Steady State. The new SNIA methodology will close the gap between performance measurements in the lab and in normal working life and make competitive vendor comparisons more useful.

Editor's comments:- The SNIA initiative is welcome but long overdue. All standards ORGs are slow to react to market trends.

2 years ago I published an article called - Can you trust flash SSD specs & benchmarks? - because it had been clear to me that many oems and publications didn't know about what I called the "halo effect" - which could make flash SSDs look better than they really were. Prior to that I had asked some vendors to retest their devices using longer test runs before publishing their benchmarks.
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SSD SoC / IP vendors list
Anobit (acquired by Apple)

ASMedia Technology

Cadence

CAST

Cypress Semiconductor

ECC Technologies

Emulex

Eonsil

Faraday Technology

Global Unichip

Greenliant Systems

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JMicron

Link_A_Media Devices

Marvell

MOSAID Technologies

NeoMagic

OCZ

Phison Electronics

SandForce

Scanimetrics

Silicon Integrated Systems

Silicon Motion

Skymedi

StorCloud

Virage Logic
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"While RAM can be made insensible to soft errors in many different ways (by design or by software) NVMs are also susceptible to irradiation errors... The lack of any refresh cycle of the stored information make flash memories vulnerable to data loss at each exposure to ionizing radiation even at the amounts which occur at sea level and in terrestrial environments."
...Emanuele Verrelli and Dimitris Tsoukalas, in their chapter called Radiation Hardness of Flash and Nanoparticle Memories - in the multi-author free online book Flash Memories - published in September 2011 by InTech

Editor's comments:- that's another reason you need to run a data healing process in the SSD controller task list BTW - not just to fix disturb errors.
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DiskOnChip family from M-Systems
DiskOnChip® - flash solid state disks
upto 2G bytes from M-Systems
Notes from SSD market history

The DiskOnChip - shown above - from M-Systems
(no longer in business) - was the 1st "SSD chip" ad
featured on StorageSearch.com. It ran here from
April 2004 to February 2006. The DiskOnChip had
been launched a long time before that - in 1994!
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Imprinting the brain of the SSD
Editor:- How did the SSD market change from:- Who cares? to You care! about the identity of SSD controllers.
click to read the case study - about the SandForce Driven program My article - Imprinting the brain of the SSD - compares SandForce's SSD processor branding program with previous examples in chip history and analyzes key business success factors.
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What's the best way to design a flash SSD?

and other questions which divide SSD opinion
More than 10 key areas of fundamental disagreement within the SSD industry are discussed in an article here on StorageSearch.com called the the SSD Heresies.
click to read the article - the SSD Heresies ... Why can't SSD's true believers agree upon a single coherent vision for the future of solid state storage? ...read the article
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read the article about SSD integrity written by SandForce
Data Integrity Challenges in flash SSD Design
Editor:- Data Integrity Challenges in flash SSD Design is an article - written by Kent Smith Senior Director, Product Marketing, SandForce.

Reliability is the next new thing for SSD designers and users to start worrying about.
read the article about SSD integrity A common theme you will hear from all fast SSD companies is that the faster you make an SSD go - the more effort you have to put into understanding and engineering data integrity to eliminate the risk of "silent errors." ...read the article
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this way to the Petabyte SSD
In 2016 there will be just 3 types of SSD in the datacenter.

One of them doesn't exist yet - the bulk storage SSD.

It will replace the last remaining strongholds of hard drives in the datacenter due to its unique combination of characteristics, low running costs and operational advantages.
click to read the article -  reaching for the petabyte SSD - not as scary as you may think ... The new model of the datacenter - how we get from here to there - and the technical problems which will need to be solved - are just some of the ideas explored in this visionary article.
1.0" SSDs 1.8" SSDs 2.5" SSDs 3.5" SSDs rackmount SSDs PCIe SSDs SATA SSDs
SSDs all flash SSDs hybrid drives flash memory RAM SSDs SAS SSDs Fibre-Channel SSDs

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