Intel Rolls out New SSDs, New Flash Technology
Portable Design News, Friday August 22, 2008
At IDF this week Intel outlined product plans and timelines for its High-Performance SATA Solid-State Drive (SSD) Product Line, aimed at mobile and desktop clients and enterprise server, storage and workstation applications.
Intel is dead serious about pushing its flash technology as a replacement for hard-disk drives (HDDs) in everything from data center mainframes to mobile Internet devices (MIDs). At the last IDF, Paul Otellini made it clear that flash would be a centerpiece of Intel’s strategy going forward. This week’s IDF only confirmed the point.
According to Randy Wilhelm, VP & GM of Intel’s NAND Products Group, over the last 12 years CPU performance has increased 175x, while HDD performance is only 1.3x faster. Intel’s new SATA SSDs display a ‘write amplification’—the lag between the measured write from the host to the completed write to NAND of <1.1. Wilhelm doesn’t predict that flash will replace HDDs entirely—indeed, in high-end computers he sees HDDs using flash for cache—but in portable devices he can see flash eventually replacing HDDs.
The newly introduced device that fits the portable (non-laptop) spaced is the Z-P140 PATA Solid-State Drive, which comes in an ultra-small package-on-package BGA solution designed for small mobile devices. Suitable to boot, load and store applications, the Z-P140 is scalable storage in 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, and 16 GB capacities, with a standard PATA interface. The recently introduced Z-P240 is a 54 x 4 x 38mm multi-level cell (MLC) device offered as a “netbook platform solution.” Available in 4-, 6- and soon 16-Gbit MLC, the devices feature access times of up to 35/7 MB/s R/W, 600G/2ms shock and 2MHr MTBF.
Intel’s new flash products incorporate some innovative technology. Users will get a performance boost from the new Intel Turbo Memory with User Pinning. User pinning allows the choice of which applications or files are stored in non-volatile memory (NVM), giving users direct control of which applications to accelerate. Data intensive programs will see the most benefit.
Intel has also addressed two of the main drawbacks of NAND flash: slow write times and wear leveling, which are directly related. According to Al Fazio, Director of Memory Technology Development at Intel, write times in NAND flash are notoriously slow because you can only write at the block level, not to individual cells. A single write request from the OS can result in numerous block writes in NAND; this in turn leads to oxide degradation, shortening the life of the memory. Intel claims to have found a way to write to individual cells without the need for a block copy/erase, thereby extending the life and reliability of the device.
--John Donovan, Editor-in-Chief
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (408) 765-8080 [http://www.intel.com/]
