Product category:
Communications ICs (Wired)
News Release from: Agere Systems | Subject: TrueStore
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 26 May 2004
Read-channel ICs enable next-generation
drives
New hard disk drive IC technology promises high-capacity storage for streaming video, digital photos, MP3s, video games and other multimedia in mobile phones and other consumer devices.
New hard disk drive (HDD) integrated circuit (IC) technology promises to enable the high-capacity storage capabilities needed for streaming video, digital photos, MP3s, video games and other forms of multimedia and entertainment in mobile phones and other consumer devices As the market leader in HDD electronics, Agere has developed read-channel and hard disk controller standard products with customised performance for each storage market, including enterprise, desktop, mobile and consumer electronics
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 8 Mar 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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HDD pre-amp boasts fastest operation
High-performance, low-power pre-amplifier integrated circuit is specifically designed for use in enterprise and desktop computer hard disk drives.
Read channel saves power for handheld drives
Fully functional 90nm TrueStore read channel features the industry's lowest power consumption and highest performance within the market for handheld consumer electronics.
These additions to Agere's TrueStore family of storage ICs represent the electronics critical to maximising the performance, power, reliability and value for storage solutions as diverse as enterprise storage area networks (SANs) and ultrasmall, 1in miniature disk drives.
Agere's new line of read-channel ICs is the industry's first to offer tailored performance across every storage market segment, with exceptional signal integrity, speed and power savings.
In addition, Agere is developing a hard disk controller that, when combined with other technologies in Agere's portfolio, provides complete electronics solutions to HDD manufacturers as well as the flexibility to repartition components used in portable consumer devices to enable new low-power storage applications.
Further reading
Preamplifier IC rides on 2.5in disk drive
Samsung is using the TrueStore PA7700 preamplifier IC, claimed to deliver the industry's lowest power consumption, best bit error rate performance and fastest operating speeds.
Disk drive chipset aims for consumer devices
Agere Systems has developed a complete chipset for developing small-form-factor disk drives.
Read-channel chip enables Flash-beating 1in HDD
Agere Systems is providing read-channel storage ICs to China-based manufacturer GS Magicstor for use in its 1in hard disk drive (HDD).
Agere is currently ranked number one in hard disk drive ICs by industry analyst IDC.
Agere has design wins with every manufacturer of 1in drives in the market today.
"With new low-power channels and disk controllers, Agere is expanding its current storage leadership to attack new opportunities in portable consumer electronics", said Ron Black, Executive Vice President of Agere's Client Systems group.
"For example, as mobile phone manufacturers begin to address the need for high-capacity storage integration, Agere is now positioned as the only electronics provider with the design expertise and complete product portfolios for both mobile terminals and hard drive storage".
Many companies including mobile phone, HDD and consumer electronics manufacturers - are looking to incorporate hard disk drive storage in innovative consumer-based products.
Use of hard disk drives in consumer devices is growing due in large part to the low cost per gigabyte they offer compared with semiconductor memory such as Flash.
With fast read/write operating speeds, HDDs also offer better performance and power efficiency for managing large multimedia files than competing Flash-based storage solutions.
Agere is transitioning storage electronics beyond "one-size-fits-all" designs to give drive manufacturers distinct solutions tuned to each storage market: a read-channel IC is the essential component for ensuring the accuracy of all the data read from or written to a disk drive.
Read-channels also are the centrepiece of storage systems-on-a-chip (SoCs), which combine multiple drive functions in a single piece of silicon to conserve space, power and cost in a hard drive.
Agere's new read-channel products are designed to address specific storage markets.
For 3.5in drives that require high data capacity for PCs, personal video recorders, gaming consoles and set-top boxes, Agere's TrueStore RC6700 read-channel offers outstanding signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance supporting increased area densities up to 160Gbyte per platter.
In addition, this new chip offers clock speeds in excess of 2.0GHz and servo performance that is 50% faster than Agere's previous-generation desktop-level channel.
For 2.5 and 1.8in drives supporting battery-driven products including notebook and tablet PCs, PDAs and digital camcorders, power savings and capacity are critical.
Agere's TrueStore RC6700LP low-power read-channel delivers capacity points up to 80Gbyte per platter for current and future mobile PC drives, while consuming 20% less power than the RC6700 and 40% less power than Agere's previous-generation low-power channel.
Ultrasmall-form-factor drives require the lowest possible power, size and cost to enable high-capacity storage in mobile phones, MP3 players, digital cameras and media players.
Agere's TrueStore RC1100ULP ultralow-power channel helps significantly extend battery life in 1.0in and sub-1.0in HDDs through a combination of circuit design techniques and the use of low-leakage process technology that limits power consumption and associated thermal issues.
This technique enables a "deep sleep" mode, allowing for up to 70% less power consumption than the RC6700LP channel.
Agere's RC7100HS services the high-capacity, high-speed SCSI and Fibre Channel enterprise storage markets (10,000-20,000rev/min drives) for configurations such as RAID arrays, SANs and server blades.
Developed using cutting-edge 90nm process technology, this channel delivers clock speeds in excess of 2.5GHz.
The RC7100HS' speed and SNR performance, combined with its judicious use of power, enables the benefits of SoC electronics to be applied to the HDDs in the enterprise space.
All four of these new read-channels benefit from a common architecture that employs a digital finite impulse response (FIR) filter, which delivers Agere's trademark signal processing along the data path in an HDD while dramatically reducing power consumption.
These channels support next-generation perpendicular recording techniques for both full and partial DC targets.
Each channel is available in an 84-pin MLCC package (54-pin package for RC1100ULP).
Additionally, Agere is making a hard disk controller solution available to customers.
A controller provides the interface between host device and drive, servicing requests to read and write data, finding the physical location on the drive platter to read/write the data, detecting errors and managing their correction.
This product is initially targeted at mobile consumer designs and complements Agere's RC1100ULP channel for integration into turnkey storage SoCs.
Manufacturers lacking in-house controller design expertise or looking to speed their entry into new market segments can take advantage of Agere's offering of a complete storage IC solution.
The unique combination of Agere's HDD electronics with its broad portfolio of communications IP can enable consumer electronics developers to significantly cut costs by repartitioning HDD electronics components elsewhere in the overall system design.
In an HDD-equipped mobile phone, for example, such repartitioning would allow for sharing of microprocessor silicon between the wireless baseband DSP and storage SoC.
Agere expects to offer engineering samples for three of its new read-channel ICs in third calendar quarter 2004, with volume production in the fall of 2004.
The RC7100HS enterprise-class channel is expected to sample in fourth calendar quarter 2004, with volume production in 2005.
Development versions of Agere's hard disk controller are expected to sample in late 2004, with SoC samples featuring the controller and the RC1100ULP read-channel expected to ship in 2005.
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