Controller puts Flash disks in embedded designs

SST's ATA Flash Disk Controller is the heart of a high performance, flash media-based data storage system.

SST's ATA Flash disk controller is the heart of a high performance, Flash media-based data storage system.

The ATA Flash disk controller recognises the control, address, and data signals on the ATA/IDE bus and translates them into memory accesses to the standard NAND type Flash media.

The SST55LD019A/B/C device supports both single level cell (SLC) and multilevel cell (MLC) Flash media.

This technology suits solid state mass storage applications offering new, expanded functionality while enabling smaller, lighter designs with lower power consumption.

The ATA/IDE interface is widely used in such products as portable and desktop computers, digital cameras, music players, handheld data collection scanners, PDAs, handy terminals, personal communicators, audio recorders, monitoring devices and set-top boxes.

SST's ATA Flash disk controller supports standard ATA/IDE protocol with up to PIO Mode-4 and multiword DMA Mode-2 interface.

Using SST's proprietary SuperFlash memory technology, the ATA Flash disk controller is factory preprogrammed with an embedded Flash file system which, on initial power-on, recognises the attached Flash media devices, sets up a bad block table, executes all necessary handshaking routines for Flash media support, and, finally, performs the low-level format.

This process typically takes about 0.5s/Mbyte of drive capacity, allowing a 640Mbyte Flash drive to be fully initialised in about 5min.

This technology enables a very fast, completely seamless integration of Flash drives into an embedded design.

For added manufacturing flexibility, system debug, re-initialisation, and user customisation can be accomplished either through the ATA/IDE interface, for ATA disk module or Flash drive products, or through the serial communication interface (SCI), for fully embedded ATA Flash disk controller designs.

The SST55LD019A/B/C high-performance ATA Flash disk controller offers sustained write performance up to 10.0Mbyte/s.

The SST55LD019A controller is to be used when the random access performance needs to be maximised.

The SST55LD019B controller is to be used when the sequential access performance needs to be maximised.

The SST55LD019C controller is to be used when the Flash drive capacity and sequential access performance need to be maximised.

The SST55LD019A/B/C can directly support up to eight Flash media devices or, through simple decoding logic, can support up to 255 Flash media devices.

Users can select either an internal or external system clock option for optimal performance at any given supply current.

The SST55LD019A/B/C offers added security protection for confidential information stored in the Flash media.

It allows up to four protection zones which can be set by the user to be read-only or hidden (read-disabled).

The ATA Flash disk controller can access the data within the protected zones through a password-protected command.

The controller also provides a pin to protect critical information stored in the Flash media from unauthorised overwrites.

The ATA Flash disk controller comes preprogrammed with a 10byte unique serial ID.

For even greater system security, the user has the option of programming an additional 10byte of ID space to create a unique, 20byte ID.

The ATA Flash disk controller comes packaged in an industry-standard, 100-lead TQFP package, an 84-ball TFBGA package, or a 64-lead TQFP package (reduced function) for easy integration into an SMT manufacturing process.

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