TDK Corp. has developed a compact semiconductor disc featuring NAND flash memory and start providing samples for assessment at drive manufacturers.
The development is a 32 GB semiconductor disc embedded with 16 chips of 16 Gb NAND flash memory. It measures 79 x 68.9 mm, about 80% compared to a 2.5-inch HDD. "If this disc goes through assessment at drive manufactures, we will be able to develop the industry's smallest class semiconductor disc," said a TDK spokesperson.
Along with TDK's "GBDriver RA5" NAND flash memory control LSI, this semiconductor disc features four super capacitors (optional) for the power supply interruption assist circuit and a 2.5-inch ATA interface. The GBDriver RA5 supports "UltraDMA mode2" data transmission mode that boasts a maximum data rate of 33.3 MB per second. This is about two times faster than a maximum data rate achieved by "PIO mode4," which TDK's previous products supported.
Reflecting the rapidly lowering price of NAND flash memory, PC manufacturers as well as POS (point of sales) system, printer and other embedded product manufacturers are paying close attention to the semiconductor disc as a replacement for the HDD. TDK intends to provide these embedded product manufacturers with the sample of this latest semiconductor disc for free and market NAND flash memory control LSIs and solution technologies to them.
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