posted on 24 June 2008 10:21
A
new solid state disk (SSD) controller technology from Silicon Motion of
Taiwan combines SLC and MLC flash in the same SSD to exploit the better
write cycle duration of SLC flash with the larger capacity of MLC
flash.
SLC
(single level cell) NAND flash stores one bit per cell and has a
superior write cycle duration compared to multi-level cell (MLC) flash
which stores two or more bits per cell and thus has a higher capacity,
and lower cost-per-cell than SLC flash.
Silicon Motion has introduced three new controllers: SM2231 (PATA,
2-channel); SM2233 (PATA, 4-channel); and SM2240 (SATA, 4-channel) that
can deliver performance, endurance, and reliability for MLC NAND
flash-based solutions targeting low-cost notebook PCs, ultra mobile
PCs, and mainstream notebook PCs.
The company's Global Wear Leveling technology, which improves the
endurance of MLC-based SSD devices, enables the controllers to manage
all NAND components as one memory unit. The controllers can
intelligently and seamlessly convert a logical block of stored data
from the host to a physical block among all the NAND components.
The SM2233 (PATA interface) and SM2240 (SATA interface) support hybrid
SSDs that use a combination of SLC and MLC NAND flash to minimize
device cost and maximize endurance.
Wallace Kou, CEO of Silicon Motion, said: "We are very excited about the launch of our next generation SSD controllers . Most of the current generation of SSDs are based on SLC NAND, a type of NAND that is about twice the cost of MLC NAND. We do not believe SSDs will become mainstream applications until they use MLC NAND, because only through the use of MLC NAND will SSD OEMs be able to quickly and significantly reduce the cost of SSDs and accelerate market adoption of devices that use SSD."
"Although MLC NAND flash has been available on the market for some time now, MLC-based SSDs have not been available commercially because they required significantly more sophisticated controllers than SLC-based SSDs to overcome the key challenges of using MLC NAND, which have primarily been issues relating to performance, endurance, and reliability. Our new SSD controllers overcome the key challenges of using MLC NAND, and we believe our solutions will become an important enabler of MLC-based SSD applications."
"We are already a market leader in the SSD controller market, especially in the low cost notebook PC segment. We shipped almost 1 million units of SSD controllers in 1Q'08, which is more than any other company in the world. The vast majority of our SSD controllers sold in the first quarter were designed to manage SLC NAND. Our new SM2231, SM2233, and SM2240 controllers, on the other hand, are designed to support upcoming sub 50 nm MLC NAND."
The read/write performance of the new controllers follows:
SM2231: 50/40MB/sec
SM2233: 100/80MB/sec
SM2240: 110/80MB/sec
Engineering samples for SM2240 are currently available and samples for SM2231 and SM2233 will be available in July 2008. Silicon Motion expects to begin mass production of these three controllers in 4Q08.
[Paul Roberts, news editor.]
출처: http://www.blocksandfiles.com/article/5704