Ottawa, MOSAID Technologies Inc. (TSX: MSD) today announced that it is now sampling the industry‘s fastest NAND

Flash memory semiconductor device. MOSAID’s 256Gb HLNAND™2 (HyperLink NAND) device operates at up to 800MB/s per channel, twice the speed of any other NAND Flash device now on the market. Targeting mass storage applications, including enterprise data centers and high-performance computing applications, MOSAID's HLNAND2 enables product designers to build SSDs (Solid State Drives) with Gigabyte-per-second performance and Terabyte-class storage capacity. 

“We are very excited to be the first company to produce a NAND Flash device that delivers DDR800 performance,” said Jin-Ki Kim, Vice President of R&D, MOSAID. “The 256Gb HLNAND2 device is optimized for a wide range of Flash storage applications that require high performance and scalability. We believe that HLNAND2 provides the industry's most cost-effective solution for Flash storage applications requiring both high performance and memory capacity.” 

MOSAID's HLNAND Flash Memory Specification 2 utilizes a high-speed, point-to-point ring topology, facilitating the development of SSDs with data transfer rates into the multiple Gigabyte-per-second range. With a raw data rate of up to 800MB/s per channel, and 1600MB/s per channel with DuplexRW™, HLNAND2 requires only one memory channel to reach a data transfer rate on the host interface exceeding 1 GB/s. In comparison, NAND Flash interfaces based on a parallel bus structure are limited to transfer rates of 200 to 400MB/s, with only a few devices supported on each channel. 

“HLNAND‘s point-to-point interface creates an extremely clean signaling environment with reduced loading, allowing developers to build SSDs with Terabyte-class capacity without data-rate degradation,” said Kim. “HLNAND’s ring topology also eliminates the need for power hungry on-die terminations that plague variants of parallel-bus Flash.” 

HLNAND2 has an 8-bit, synchronous, DDR data bus but utilizes a source-synchronous clock and is, therefore, capable of operating at up to 400MHz to deliver up to 800MB/s of throughput. Other features include: 

- Flash interface speed closely matched to high-speed system interconnects such as PCI Express generations 2 and 3 

- DuplexRW™: simultaneous DDR800 read & write, effectively 1600MB/s data throughput, well adapted to the PCIe duplexing feature 

- Power saving by automatic packet truncation 

- Built-in EDC (Error Detection Code) in ‘Command Packets’ for the best reliability in packet protocol communication 

The full specification for HLNAND2 is available for download at www.hlnand.com 
256Gb HLNAND2 (DDR533/DDR667/DDR800) 

The HLNAND2 Flash memory device is an MCP (multi-chip package) comprised of a nine die stack: eight industry-standard NAND Flash dies, and one MOSAID proprietary ASIC interface chip. The MCP is packaged in a 100-ball BGA (ball grid array) measuring 18mm x 14mm. 

The design supports either monolithic 32nm/2xnm Toggle Mode or legacy asynchronous NAND Flash chips, evenly distributed over four banks. The interface chip contains the external high-speed HyperLink interface and controls each Flash bank automatically and independently. An EDC feature eliminates bit errors in Command Packets to ensure reliability and error-free communication of commands and register data. The device provides user configurable virtual pages for read operations with page depth choices of 2048B, 4096B, 8192B and a full page including extra bits. 

Product Availability 

MOSAID also announced today that it has signed a five-year manufacturing license with Winpac Inc. Winpac will package and distribute finished HLNAND devices, including the 256Gb HLNAND2 (DDR533/DDR667/DDR800) and the production-ready 256Gb HLNAND (DDR266) announced in July 2011. 

MOSAID at NVRAMOS11 

MOSAID is showcasing its HLNAND technology, and presenting a related paper, at Operating System Support for Next Generation Large Scale Non-Volatile Random Access Memory (NVRAMOS11) in Jeju, Korea, November 7-10, 2011. 

About HyperLink (HL) NAND Flash 

HLNAND Flash is a high-performance solution that combines MOSAID‘s own HyperLink memory technology with industry standard NAND Flash cell technology to deliver the industry’s most advanced feature set, reaching sustained I/O bandwidths more than ten times higher than conventional Flash. For more information, visit www.hlnand.com 

News Source: MOSAID Technologies via Korea News Wire.com