Denali Memory Report:
The Denali Memory Report is produced by Cadence Design Systems, Inc. It delivers memory market news, discussions of market trends, products and product strategies of the memory vendors, plus information about alliances and industry consortia.
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Recent Posts
- Some great analysis on SSD wear leveling and power consumption
- The Economist covers PCM – must be something real
- Add OCZ to the growing list of SSD vendors differentiating their drives with a proprietary controller
- IDT announces DDR4 register chip for DDR4 registered DIMMs and 3D die stacks
- Western Digital sampling 5mm, 2.5-inch, 500Gbyte hybrid HDD with NAND Flash
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Monthly Archives: August 2012
The top 21 things you probably didn’t know about Flash memory, from the Flash Memory Summit
Last week’s Flash Memory Summit ended with a session titled “The top 10 things you need to know about Flash memory today. Richard Goering summarized the panel in his blog titled “Flash Memory Panelists Challenge Conventional Thinking About NAND and … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash, Flash memory, Floyd, NAND Flash, Scaling limit, Solid-state drive, SSD, Western Digital
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Need yet another argument for designing your own SSD controller?
A Web site called legitreviews.com recently reviewed the ADATA XPG SX900 128Gbyte SSD and this review contains additional justification for seriously considering developing your own SSD controller for new storage products. The review starts off this way: “ADATA is long … Continue reading
Posted in SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash memory, Flash memory controller, Hitachi Data Systems, LSI, SandForce, Serial ATA, Solid-state drive, SSD
2 Comments
What does Intel’s choice of GDDR5 graphics DRAM for main memory with its Manycore Xeon Phi coprocessor say about SoC design?
George Chrysos discussed the Intel MIC (Many Integrated Core) architecture of the Knights Bridge chip (officially called the Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor) at today’s Hot Chips 24 conference and disclosed that it uses GDDR5 graphics memory as the main memory … Continue reading
Want to know why SK hynix is placing its bets on three different alternatives to DRAM and Flash?
Last week at the Flash Memory Summit, Dr. Sung Wook Park spoke about memory. No surprise there, but there were several surprises in Park’s presentation. The first surprise popped up in the slide immediately following the keynote presentation’s title slide: … Continue reading
Add Hitachi Data Systems to the growing list of companies developing their own SSD controllers
According to this Computerworld article, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) announced last week that it is developing its own SSD controller for MLC NAND Flash to be used in its SSD arrays. The objective is a 4x improvement in read/write throughput, … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, MLC, NAND, SSD, Storage
Tagged Computerworld, Flash memory, Flash memory controller, HDS, Hitachi, Hitachi Data Systems, Solid-state drive
3 Comments
Tweaktown review of 1.6Tbyte SMART Storage Optimus SSD reveals a few secrets. Wanna see them?
Tweaktown.com attended last week’s Flash Memory Summit and has published some great photos of the internals of the 2.5-inch SMART Storage 1.6Tbyte Optimus SSD. The drive has dual SAS ports with accompanying specs of 1Gbps sequential read and 500MGbps sequential … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, MLC, NAND, SAS, SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash, Flash memory, Flash memory controller, Multi-level cell, NAND Flash, Skyera, SMART Storage, Solid-state drive, SSD
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Memcon is filling up. Register now to be sure you get a ticket. It’s free. September 18. Silicon Valley
The Flash Memory Summit took place this week and registration for next month’s Memcon in Silicon Valley suddenly took a big uptick. I’d like to suggest that if you want to be certain to attend Memcon next month, you might … Continue reading
As seen at Flash Memory Summit: Whose car is this?
Leaving Flash Memory Summit on Tuesday, I stopped in my tracks when I saw this Toyota Corolla’s license plate. Can you decode it?
Posted in Flash
Tagged Flash memory, Flash memory controller, Flash Memory Summit, Toyota Corolla
1 Comment
Want to know Rado Danilak’s and Skyera’s plan for total enterprise-class SSD world domination?
This week, I reported on a new high-end, high-performance 44Tbyte SSD for data centers and server farms from Skyera. (See “44Tbyte Skyera Skyhawk SSD employs Everspin MRAM as write cache” and “How Skyera developed the 44Tbyte, enterprise-class Skyhawk SSD from … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, HDD, MLC, NAND, SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash memory, Flash memory controller, Multi-level cell, NAND Flash, SandForce, Skyera, Solid-state drive, SSD
1 Comment
How Wired’s Mat Mohan got his personal data back from his SSD after his MacBook Air was hacked. Hint: $1690 in recovery fees.
Mat Mohan knows how to transform adversity into opportunity. He’s a senior writer for Wired’s Gadget Lab and his Apple account was ingeniously hacked through a scam perpetrated on Amazon to get the necessary information to hack into Apple’s system. … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, SSD, Storage
Tagged Apple, Data recovery, DriveSavers, Hard disk drive, Solid-state drive, SSD, Wired
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NVMe Emulator from Teledyne LeCroy emulates the SSD or the host controller
A PCIe-based emulator board from Teledyne LeCroy—the Summmit Z3-16 Exerciser—can emulate either an NVMe SSD or an NVMe controller, so it’s a good choice no matter what type of NVMe hardware you’re developing. It supports transfer rates of 2.5 to … Continue reading
Posted in LeCroy, NVM Express, NVMe
Tagged Emulator, NVMe, PCI Express, Solid-state drive, Teledyne
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Marvell’s DragonFly NVRAM and NVCACHE provide high SSD IOPS for large storage apps
Marvell has just announced two new versions of its DragonFly PCIe board series: the DragonFly NVRAM and the DragonFly NVCACHE. Both boards contain a mixture of PCIe controller, SDRAM, SLC NAND Flash, supercapacitors, and software to create plug-in boards for … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, Marvell, SAS, SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash memory, IOPS, PCI Express, Servers, Solid-state drive, SSD, Storage
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44Tbyte Skyera Skyhawk SSD employs Everspin MRAM as write cache
NAND Flash memory would be perfect for nonvolatile storage because except that Flash write speeds are slow enough to create a window of time when write transactions could be lost during a power failure. This problem is especially acute for … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, MRAM, NAND, SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash, Flash memory, Flash Memory Summit, MRAM, NAND Flash, Skyera, Skyhawk
3 Comments
Seen on the street: WD needs SSD Engineers
Drinking coffee with my friend Ira Feldman on Friday at the Starbucks behind Cadence, this advertising truck pulled up and parked for a while. Must be some sort of sign about the growing popularity of SSDs. I wonder how many … Continue reading
Be sure to come back on August 21
There are several key announcements queued up on the Denali Memory Report, timed to coincide with the start of the Flash Memory Summit on Tuesday.
Posted in Uncategorized
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Friday Video: A personal invitation to Memcon from Sanjay Srivastava
Want to know why you need to be at Memcon this year? Here’s Denali Software founder Sanjay Srivastava to tell you why: Now go and sign up! It’s a free ticket and includes breakfast, lunch, and some goodies—not to mention … Continue reading
IDT to present on NVMe at next week’s Flash Memory Summit in Silicon Valley
Flash Memory Summit is next week in Silicon Valley and IDT is giving a presentation on the NVMe standard for PCIe-based SSDs. Peter Onufryk, director of engineering in the Enterprise Computing Division at IDT, will present “How the Streamlined Architecture … Continue reading
Posted in NVM Express, NVMe
Tagged Flash memory, Flash Memory Summit, IDT, Integrated Device Technology, NVM Express, PCI Express, Silicon Valley
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Can you make money selling DRAM? The Memory Guy says “yes,” but perhaps not all of the time
Jim Handy, The Memory Guy, has decided to become a Mythbuster with respect to the meme: “You cannot make a profit in the DRAM manufacturing business.” He just published a blog post titled “Is DRAM Really a Profitless Business?” This … Continue reading
Flash memory endurance, multi-level cells, and process technology
I’ve been following an interesting discussion about Flash memory endurance, multi-level cells, and process technology in the LinkedIn Solid State Storage Group. Yesterday, The Memory Guy Jim Handy stepped in with this comment: “Flash endurance is the result of disruptions … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, NAND
Tagged Error detection and correction, Flash, Flash memory, LinkedIn, MLC, Multi-level cell
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Initial Hybrid Memory Cube short-reach interconnect specification issued to Consortium adopters
The Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium (HMCC), now supported by the three top DRAM vendors (Samsung, SK hynix, and Micron), has just issued an initial draft specification for the Hybrid Memory Cube’s “short-reach interconnection across physical layers”—in other words, the short-reach … Continue reading
Posted in 3D, DRAM, HMC, Hybrid Memory Cube, Hynix, Micron, Samsung
Tagged Hybrid Memory Cube, IBM, Micron, MicronTechnology, PHY, Samsung, SerDes
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Plextor blog walks you through the design process for the PX-M5S SSD: better, faster, cheaper
Plextor has just published an extremely interesting blog post that walks you through some of the high-level design decisions behind the company’s new PX-M5S SSD. According to the design goals, the prioritized objectives are: 1) speed 2) reliability 3) price … Continue reading
Posted in NAND, ONFI, SSD, Toggle
Tagged Flash memory, Hynix, Plextor, SandForce, Solid-state drive, SSD, Toshiba
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Samsung Exynos 5 Dual mobile processor features two 1.7GHz ARM Cortex-A15 processors, a WQXGA display controller, and two LPDDR3 controllers to feed ‘em
The Web was abuzz this weekend with the unveiling last week of the Samsung Exynos 5 Dual mobile processor, which features two 1.7GHz ARM Cortex-A15 processors. The previous generation of Exynos Dual mobile processor incorporated two 1.4GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor … Continue reading
Posted in ARM, Cortex-A15, Exynos, LPDDR3, Samsung
Tagged ARM, Cortex-A15, Exynos, LPDDR3, WQXGA
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Beware of Geeks bearing gifts (SSDs)?
I love this article in Bloomberg Businessweek titled “Samsung Sends Out Geeks to Revamp Laptops With New Drives.” It reports that Samsung placed a roving pan-European army of “geeks” in the UK, France, and Germany to ambush pedestrians and offer … Continue reading
Posted in Samsung, SSD
Tagged Bloomberg Businessweek, France, Geeks, Germany, Samsung, Solid-state drive
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Are Enterprise SSDs a “bad” idea? Four tips and counter-tips for your consideration.
I ran across a commentary on the Kaminerio Web site, “Is SSD Really a Bad Idea? BE CAREFUL WHOSE ADVICE YOU TAKE” by Eyal Markovich, which is a reaction to a blog posting by Phil Goodwin on the SearchSolidStateStorage.com Web … Continue reading
Posted in SSD, Storage
Tagged Flash memory, IOPS, MLC, Multi-level cell, Solid-state drive, SSD
1 Comment
Virident Systems introduces PCIe SSD with capacities to 2.2Tbytes, high IOPS
Virident Systems has announced the Virident FlashMAX II, the company’s next-generation PCIe SSD for enterprise environments. According to the company, the FlashMAX II features the highest capacity (550Gbytes to 2.2Tbytes) in a low-profile PCIe plug-in card format, with industry-leading performance … Continue reading
Posted in PCIe, SSD
Tagged Flash memory, FlashMAX II, IOPS, PCI Express, Solid-state drive, Virident Systems
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Test your system design for DDR4 JEDEC compliance with this $4500 ‘Scope add-on
Agilent has just announced a compliance test application for DDR4 SDRAM system designs. The $4500 Agilent N6462A DDR4 test application accelerates bring-up and debugging of DDR4 SDRAM-based systems by automating a bevy of physical-layer I/O testing with the company’s 9000 … Continue reading
Posted in DDR, DDR4, DRAM, SDRAM
Tagged Agilent, Agilent Technologies, DDR4 SDRAM, JEDEC, Memcon, Oscilloscope
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How many SSDs does it take to saturate PCIe Gen 3? Would you believe 16 drives?
It’s now possible to conduct some interesting performance tests on real PCIe Gen 3 products and the video below shows you a PCIe Gen 3 RAID card talking to 16 SSDs, which is the number of drives needed to saturate … Continue reading
Posted in PCIe, SSD, Storage
Tagged Disk array controller, PCI Express, RAID, Sandy Bridge, Serial ATA, Solid-state drive, Storage
3 Comments
Save the date: JEDEC DDR4 Workshop, Santa Clara, CA. October 30-31
JEDEC is sponsoring a 2-day DDR4 workshop that should interest anyone planning on using DDR4 SDRAM in next-generation designs. Day 1: DDR4 vs DDR3: Comparison Matrix Why migrate to DDR4 Power-on, initialization, and training Read/Write and refresh operation review Day … Continue reading
Fast update on STT MRAM vendor Avalanche Technology: They’ve been here since 2006
Alan Niebel, CEO of Web-Feet Research, commented via LinkedIn on yesterday’s blog post about STT MRAM vendor Avalanche Technology: “Avalanche has been in the STT MRAM race for over four years now. They are not late to the party, they … Continue reading
Flash Memory Summit: Great Program on Non-Volatile memory.
The Flash Memory Summit rolls into Silicon Valley – August 21-23. Here’s a summary of topics covered in the program: Flash Memory-Based Architectures Next-Generation Flash and SSD Controllers Solid-State Drive (SSD) Technology Enterprise SSDs Testing/Performance/Endurance NVMe LDPC Coding Enterprise Storage … Continue reading
Posted in Flash, mSATA, NAND, NOR, NVM Express, NVMe, SSD, Storage, Toggle
Tagged Flash, Flash memory, Solid-state drive, SSD
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Add Avalanche Technology to the growing list of vendors in pursuit of STT MRAM
EEtimes reports http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4391539/Startup-raises-money-to-bring-MRAM-to-market?pageNumber=0 that Avalance Technology http://www.avalanche-technology.com/ has just gotten $30 million in funding from Avalanche’s current investors (Vulcan Capital, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Thomvest Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures) and VTB Capital (Moscow, Russia). The investment is to help … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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See the future of DRAM usage, at least until 2015. Marc Greenberg from Cadence lays it out in a video
This year at DAC, Marc Greenberg gave a presentation on the near- and medium-term future of DRAM in the ChipEstimate booth. Two separate technology paths will dominate: the PC/server space and the mobile space. By 2015, PCs and servers will … Continue reading
Posted in DDR, DDR3, DDR4, DRAM, LPDDR2, LPDDR3, Wide I/O
Tagged DDR3 SDRAM, DDR4 SDRAM, DRAM, SDRAM
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