Solid-state storage products company Greenliant Systems has started volume production of its SATA interface NANDrive solid-state drives (SSDs). The GLS85LS product family has the same pin-out across all capacities—2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and higher in the future—that simplifies system-level board design.
The devices measure 14 x 24 x 1.95mm in a 145-ball grid array (BGA), 1mm ball pitch package and are one of the smallest SSDs in the market, according to the company. This gives OEMs flexibility when designing data storage into their embedded products. The BGA package can be soldered directly onto the motherboard—no extra connectors are needed—providing added stability to the SSD.
Compatible with the latest generation chipsets, SATA NANDrive combines Greenliant’s proprietary high-performance NAND flash controller with up to eight NAND flash die in a multi-chip package. As a fully integrated SSD—when compared to using discrete NAND and a controller—NANDrive improves customers’ time-to-market by eliminating the need to procure and qualify multiple chips.
“As NAND flash memory continues to rapidly shrink, making it difficult for embedded products to keep up, a standard-interface storage solution that doesn’t require redesigns as each new geometry node is needed,” said Michael Yang, principal analyst for memory & storage, iSuppli Corp. “The timing is right for BGA package SSDs like NANDrive.”
“By offering NANDrive with a SATA interface, we are providing our automotive, industrial, medical and enterprise networking customers an essential building block for their embedded systems,” said Bing Yeh, CEO of Greenliant Systems. “Products that use NANDrive, such as robotics, ruggedized tablets, blade servers and car infotainment systems, have unique storage requirements. They need SSDs that will reliably preserve data integrity, with long operating life and ‘military-grade’ security options, which are Greenliant’s areas of expertise and where NANDrive excels.”
The SATA NANDrive offers active-mode power consumption as low as 335mW typical, idle mode at 210mW typical and standby mode at 190mW typical. It also features a deep power-down mode to further reduce power usage to 10mW typical.
The advanced security features of the GLS85LS product family include a unique device ID, password protection and four independent zones that the user can set to different protection levels. In addition, SATA NANDrive allows the user to select specific areas of the SSD to instantly purge sensitive content, instead of erasing the entire drive.
Greenliant’s NAND management technology is based on advanced static and dynamic wear-leveling algorithms that balance the wear across erase blocks in the entire memory subsystem, maximizing the NANDrive lifespan and allowing system engineers to address applications with long lifetime requirements.
SATA NANDrive is available now. To order GLS85LS products, view the list of Greenliant authorized distributors and sales representatives online. Customers can also request NANDrive product samples and evaluation boards online.
