Hyperstone flash memory card or solid state disk controller together with included firmware provide considerable mechanisms when handling a complex medium - making flash memory easy to use for consumer applications and reliable for industrial applications. Furthermore, firmware that is stored in the flash itself offers several possibilities for custom features, even when based on identical hardware.

Following flash cards and removable data storage systems, the latest killer application for flash is considered to be solid state disk (SSD), a substitute for hard disk drives or fixed storage devices. Flash has some significant advantages over hard disk drives most of which due to the absence of moving parts, power consumption and robustness to physical impact:
 

• Performance:
  Latency times basically due to the inherent mechanical operations of HDD are not necessary for SSD and seek times or access times are about 30 times faster. Sustained writing using interleaving can be scaled to some extend by both HDD and SSD. However, again due to the mechanical issues, this is more difficult for HDDs. Finally the HDD has a slight advantage at sustained reading. Performance in real life scenarios also depends on the level of fragmentation of the data when using HDDs. Have you used your defrag tool lately? Or have you ever performed this for a 500 GB drive? With SSDs, defragmentation is an inherent feature of the logical to physical translation and wear-leveling.

 

• Cost:
  Storage capacity independent bottom line cost determined by BOM is about 50$. Therefore, HDD is cost competitive for large capacity but not for small capacity drives.

 

• Power consumption:
  * Power Idle: HDD 0.8 - 5.0 W; SSD: 0.035 - 3.0 W 
  * Power Read/Write: HDD: 5.0 - 10.0 W; SSD: 0.325 - 5.0 W 

 

• Reliability:
  Again due to the mechanics HDD most significant disadvantage is its reliability and sensitivity due to shock

 

• Scalability of Form Factors:
  Solid State Storage can be implemented in many different form factors from microSD or eMMC to 3.5" drives.

 

• Choosing the optimal Host Interfaces:
  Solid State Storage can be based on several host interfaces including but not limited to SD, MMC, USB, S-ATA, P-ATA/IDE, CF, while HDDs are mainly driven by the PC market using mainly S-ATA today.

  

The F3 Flash Memory Controller is specifically designed for applications such as high-speed CF cards, disk-on-module, or solid state disks. it supports automatic sensing of PCMCIA or True-IDE host interface mode. Compliant to PCMCIA 2.1, PC Card Advance Technology Attachment (ATA), and CF 3.0/4.0, memory mapped or I/O operations, fast ATA host-to-buffer transfer rates, programmed input/output (PIO) mode 6, MDMA mode 4, and ultraDMA mode 5 in true-Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) mode. While offering parallel-ATA (PATA), serial-ATA (SATA) can also be realized using an additional PATA to SATA bridge chip.
The firmware, stored in flash memory, is application and host interface specific. All tasks with respect to flash and data management and data transfers between flash and host are
implemented either in hardware or in software. Hyperstone flash controllers boot-up using firmware that is stored within the flash memory of the product.
Other solutions might store firmware in the ROM of the controller. Therefore, based on identical product hardware, manufacturers are able to provide different products or feature sets. Also,
firmware could be updated in the field or immediately before delivery. The firmware is copied into the flash in a so called pre-formatting process after the storage product has been assembled.
Several algorithms and concepts are used to address the questions initially posed re-writing to areas, maximizing flash life time, and ensuring data transfer integrity.