Just got the PR from SD Card Association (SDA) announcing availability of eSD - embedded flash technology standard (full release below). We applaud the development of standards that will make it easier for OEMs to meet the growing data storage demands in their devices. As a member of the SD Card Association, Datalight has long been a proponent of increasing the reliability of data storage. While the eSD standard will help with integration and hardware reliability challenges, it will also shift the spotlight to the shortcomings of traditional file systems. Building a fully robust and incorruptible product requires  reliability throughout the entire hardware platform and software stack.

Full Press release

SD CARD ASSOCIATION INTRODUCES EMBEDDED SD
FOR MOBILE PHONES, CONSUMER DEVICES

New Embedded SD standard offers field-proven SD functionality
and design ease to increase device storage options

SAN RAMON, Calif. – Sept. 11, 2008 – The SD Card Association (SDA) announced today it will enter the embedded storage market with the Embedded SD standard for storage devices in November. The Embedded SD specification extends the widely adopted, market-proven SD interface to embedded storage, doubling device storage potential and easing platform design in mobile handsets and consumer electronics devices.

As next-generation mobile handsets and CE devices demand high-capacity embedded storage and flash management solutions, Embedded SD simplifies system engineering by leveraging well-known SD standards. It allows all removable, embedded storage devices and input/output (I/O) peripherals to utilize the same common interface. Embedded SD separates flash management from the host and provides manufacturers and consumers with the flexibility of up to 32 GB scalable high-capacity on-board memory, plus 32 GB of removable memory with any SD High-Capacity memory card.

“The miniSD and microSD form factors are the leading interfaces for removable storage cards for mobile handsets, currently dominating the market, and are expected to constitute 90 percent of all card slots in mobile handsets in 2010, according to our analysis,” said Nam Hyung Kim, director and chief analyst for iSuppli Corp. “The new Embedded SD standard is built on that leading SD standard and takes aim at mobile handset storage needs like low power consumption, boot functionality, small form factor and integrated flash management.”

The Embedded SD standard regulates the specifications of SD interface-based embedded flash devices, easing the integration of storage devices and avoiding market fragmentation in the mobile and CE industries.

The Embedded SD specification defines the mechanical and electrical framework of the new embedded form factor and is also focused on enabling advanced functionality in embedded storage devices. Embedded SD devices offer a smart system solution with a smooth migration path from legacy designs, reduced design complexity and support for code, applications and user data storage.

“The SD Card Association plans to significantly reduce market fragmentation by delivering superior compatibility to the world of embedded storage, just as we have done in the storage card industry,” said James Taylor, president and chairman of the SD Card Association. “The association will continue to drive significant host market expansion while maintaining backwards compatibility with future interface development. The continuous collaboration and cooperation within the association’s ecosystem serves as a strong engine for innovation, consistency and growth.”

To speed adoption of Embedded SD, support of boot functionality requires only minor changes in the host ROM code of currently mass deployed baseband, application and multimedia processors with minimal additional changes to block device driver to support the additional functionality of embedded SD.

The Embedded SD Standard Defined:

•         Fully Compatible with SD standard – Embedded SD is fully compatible with the industry leading SDHC (SD 2.00) interface, ensuring a seamless migration from current SD to Embedded SD designs.
•         Both 3.3V and 1.8V Power Supplies – Supported for both flash and I/O power sources.
•         Boot from Embedded SD – Reliable and secure storage of boot code on an Embedded SD device reduces the number of memory components in a design, as well as the number of busses required, enabling more efficient designs.
•         Flexible Partition Mechanism – Allows multiple physical partitions accommodating varied data sources such as boot code, OS, applications and multimedia content with customizable levels of protection for each partition.  Original equipment manufacturers, mobile network operators and content providers gain optimal flexibility and control to configure the Embedded SD device for different usages and data types.
•         Protection Mechanism – Flexibility to separately configure each physical partition with different read and write/erase protection modes.
•         Data Robustness – Optional configuration of each physical partition of the Embedded SD device, including full immunity to power failure and protection of critical data (boot code, operator data, etc.).
•         Power-Saving Sleep Mode – Option to customize power needs and reduce power consumption and boost battery life.

SD Card Association
The SD Card Association is an open industry standards organization established in January 2000 by Matsushita Electric (Panasonic), SanDisk and Toshiba, and is supported by a consortium of more than 1,100 companies. The SDA’s mission is to set industry standards and promote SD product acceptance in a variety of applications. SD Memory Card standards are currently being built into a wide range of digital products such as cellular phones, audio players, automotive multimedia systems, handheld PCs and digital video and still cameras. For more information about SDA, please visit the association’s web site, www.sdcard.org. Parties interested in joining SDA are encouraged to visit the web site or contact helpdesk@sdcard.org.

There are two possible configurations in how boot code might be stored on a device

1. Boot code is stored in raw flash (no file system) and directly accessed from bootloader
2. Boot code is stored on a Reliance formatted flash volume

Option 1: Raw flash
If the boot image is being stored in RAW flash outside the file system, then the only way to be able to ensure that you got an update without damaging the original would be to reserve extra RAW space such that you could simultaneously have two boot images. The bootloader now needs to be able to switch between them and/or locate both of them The process of updating the boot image to a new location would include erasing the old image after updating the new, and having some sort of checksum to ensure the image was intact in case both were still there.

In this case, there would be no really good way to protect the update of the file to that exact same location without compromising the boot image itself. Many customers still use this way to store their boot images, but of course this means that they can’t take advantage of disabling transactions, atomically updating the boot image, and then doing a single transaction to commit all (or none) of the changes.

Option 2: Reliance
In this case, customer would not have a bootloader that checked a physical location for a boot image – they would have a bootloader that opened a file in the Reliance file system at boot time instead, if they were using a file system. Datalight Reliance comes with an utility called “Datalight Loader” which includes a lightweight Reliance reader. This utility integrates seamlessly in your bootloader code and allows the bootloader to mount and read Reliance partitions. Since the bootloader is capable of “reading” a Reliance disk, it doesn’t care where in the file system Reliance stores the file – it just opens the file, and loads it.

In this mode, while updating the boot image, the update utility disables all transactions and initiates the boot image update. Reliance never overwrites live data and hence this new boot code is written to a free-area of the flash. Once the entire boot image code is written, the bootloader calls for a manual transaction event, in which we update the metaroots to point to the new boot code area as the committed area. Old boot code area is now marked as free and can be used for future operations.

If power loss occurs during this replacement process, the device still boots back using the previous boot image, which was never modified

A week of SSD, NAND questions and New Technology

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years since the invention of flash memory, but the 20-foot timeline documenting its milestones that was displayed at this year’s Flash Memory Summit offered ample evidence of the progress the technology has made. Attendance at this third Summit once again broke records set by previous shows and the energy of the attendees was high. At more than 1,300 registered attendees, 2008 was at least 25% larger than 2007. Having been a sponsor since the show’s inception, we can confirm that it was even more packed this year. Most of the keynote presentations spilled out of the main hall, and people were stacked up into the hallway trying to hear what was being said inside. The quality of the presentations once again proved worth the trip to Santa Clara, but it was obvious to everyone that the show is quickly outgrowing the Santa Clara Marriott.

The unofficial theme this year appeared to be solid-state drives (SSD), but beyond the SSD buzz, there were many presentations on designing NAND-based products, software optimization of flash, future technologies, and other flash-related topics of interest. Datalight gave four presentations (Flash Interfaces 101), and organized a forum on using flash in embedded as well as a full-day “executive update.”

There were a couple of keynote addresses we found particularly interesting and entertaining:

Dean Klein from Micron gave a speech entitled, “A Closer Look at NAND Flash.” Highlights of Dean’s keynote included a map of NANDs progress through the Gartner Cycle of Hype,

Gartner Cycle of Hype – Source: Gartner Research

in which he asserted that NAND is over the “peak of inflated expectations,” heading down into the “trough of disillusionment.” Klein jokingly referred to hard-drives several times as “rotating rust,” and the address featured an entertaining series of video clips along the lines of Apple’s Mac vs. PC ads, in which Hard Drive was escorted by Flash to a therapy session to talk about his sluggishness, forgetfulness, narcolepsy, and overeating (power consumption).

Eli Harari from SanDisk gave a keynote called “Changing the World: The Flash Memory Revolution.” Eli’s speech was less humorous than Dean’s, but no less interesting to listen to. He showed several timelines describing the evolution of flash applications, and a chart predicting that NAND demand will outstrip supply by 2011, allowing flash vendors to raise prices (!) and finally get a return on their investment in the technology. He also compared the progress of NAND density to Moore’s law, showing that NAND is tracking far ahead of where Moore’s law says it should be. He theorized that the next flash technology will be 3D NAND, and gave a fascinating demonstration of how it’s built and how it works, including photographs of 3D NAND’s unique architecture.

Spansion showed their ecoRAM: basically flash in a DIMM form factor. Cool. And eco-friendly, apparently. This new class of flash promises to reduce the power requirements for large server applications, using an eighth of the energy of DRAM, with better reliability, and read performance fast enough to meet the rapid access requirements of large-scale server installations.

Which highlights another key theme of the Summit: Power. How can flash help reduce global warming? Can SSDs make data centers run more economically? Uh, did I say “data centers?” Yes, surprise! While last year’s Summit saw the invasion of the laptop, this year a significant portion of the sessions addressed opportunities in the Enterprise segment.

But the “Big E” didn’t totally eclipse the “Little e” (embedded). There is still a growing need for low power, high performance flash soldered onto boards and into removable cards for embedded systems. The embedded track had presentations ranging from the basics of flash interfaces and differences between NOR and NAND to complex design methodology and frequency sources for flash memory applications.

Speaking of last year’s Summit, where Hybrid Hard Drives (traditional hard disk drive with flash caching) battled SSDs for attention, whatever happened to the HHDs? The only sign of them we saw was a presentation from Seagate wherein they said there is still work to do, particularly on the software (i.e., Windows Vista).

Our take overall? Industry insiders’ perspectives are essential for long term planning and this show is the place to get them. But all that crystal-ball-gazing can be a bit out of phase with where customers are today. SSDs are interesting and undoubtedly will be a key component in many future designs, but the reality is that migration from NOR-only systems to those that include both NAND and NOR or just NAND continues to be the mainstay for today’s designs. An analyst from IDC cashed a reality check on the SSD hype when he put up a slide showing relative market sizes of flash memory (big), hard disk drives (huge) and SSDs (tiny).

While many flash manufacturers are in an oversupply situation on NAND, others have parts on allocation. The industry as a whole is looking for ways to reduce costs and keep (or get) fabs profitable. This causes lower volume, lower margin product lines to be discontinued, sometimes just as designs using them are about to go to market.

Bottom line? The Flash Memory Summit provides a great opportunity to step outside our day-to-day reality and consider the possibilities promised by emerging technology. Next year’s Summit is sure to be a must-attend event for gaining planning perspective. We hope to see you there!

If you missed the Summit, presentations should be available soon at www.FlashMemorySummit.com. Bill’s presentation on flash interfaces, complete with narration, is available now: Flash Interfaces 101