ATA modules enable high reliability SATA 6Gbyte/s SSDs

Article By : TDK

The latest line-up from TDK features the company's GBDriver GS1 and claims to deliver the reliability needed for industrial applications, boasting higher reading and writing speeds.

TDK has revealed that it will consecutively unleash three SATA modules equipped with the SATA 6Gbyte/s-compatible, NAND-type, flash memory-controlled IC GBDriver GS1. The M.2.2242 (SNS1B series), mSATA (SMS1B series) and HalfSlim (SHS1B series) is set to appear on the market this month.

According to the company, the modules deliver the reliability needed for industrial applications, and boast higher reading and writing speeds. Industrial applications increasingly call for solid state drives with MLC NAND type memory. In such cases, improved data retention capability as well as high reliability becomes important considerations along with the regular benchmark test results.

To satisfy these requirements, the controller features more than just the recovery and refresh functions present in the existing GBDriver series. It also comes with a highly acclaimed data protection algorithm that works when the power of the GBDriver is interrupted, and a new backup circuit for an internal power supply with a total of three series, including the 22mm x 42mm and ultra-compact M.2. This ensures highly robust data reliability when using the MLC.

The standard lineup also provides the choice of pSLC flash memory, which offers higher robustness than MLC and lower cost per bit than SLC, resulting in a good balance of reliability and cost, noted the company.

Data security has also been enhanced. In addition to the standard ATA security complement, AES 128bit and 256bit encryption and a TDK proprietary security function are also available. This makes it possible to store data in the NAND type flash memory in encrypted form, to guard against the risk of data leaks and tampering, resulting in highly robust storage security.

Main applications of the devices include: factory automation equipment; railway and transport equipment; cashless registers and other point-of-sales (POS) equipment, convenience store and kiosk terminals, ATMs and other banking terminals; automotive equipment; office equipment such as multi-function printers (MFPs), commercial projectors, telephone conferencing systems, and electronic blackboards; amusement devices; advertising display equipment; medical and measuring instruments and nursing care equipment such as diagnostic imaging systems; base station equipment for 4th generation (4G) mobile data communication systems; smart grid equipment; and security and surveillance equipment.

The SATA modules feature the GBDriver GS1 developed by TDK and supports 345Mbyte/s read access and 145Mbyte/s write access. They also flaunt TDK's proprietary global static wear leveling algorithm that counts the number of times each memory block is programmed (erased) and replaces all blocks uniformly. In addition, a power interruption tolerance algorithm on the SSD onboard controller and an internal power supply protection circuit reliably prevent collateral data errors such as corruption of data other than the data being written if power is interrupted when writing data. This provides robust reliability against sudden power supply problems.

The auto-refresh function reads all data of the flash memory including little used areas and automatically performs error correction if required. This guards against data loss due to read disturbance errors and data retention errors. Auto refresh processing is performed in the background, so even when performing correction processing, there is virtually no delay in command response. Likewise, a function for specifying a data range and completely deleting all data in it is also available. This is useful to protect personal information in keeping with a privacy policy.

Production capacity is expected at 10,000 units per month per series: April 2016 (SMS1B series), June 2016 (SHS1B series) and August 2016 (SNS1B series).