That cracking you may or may not have heard last month was the sound of SanDisk and Toshiba breaking the sub-20 nanometer NAND barrier. Flying in the face of conventional wisdom (and more than a few industry analysts), both companies recently announced they will be delivering 19nm NAND this year. Intel and Micron are close behind, each with their own 20 nanometer announcements. Those who said it couldn’t (or shouldn’t) be done had some very compelling reasons, chiefly that the physics behind multi-cell architecture in a 1x nanometer cell are shaky at best. How many electrons will there be in a 1x nanometer cell? How many levels of data can possibly be detected with so few of them? The supporting technologies for this detection, not to mention correction of the unavoidable errors that will creep in will be critical .

In an industry that has come to expect product innovation in the form of shrinking die sizes being announced roughly every 12-18 months, keeping pace with this trend indefinitely is not only pushing the boundaries of physics, but also manufacturers’ technical abilities. How low can they go? While the introduction of 19nm parts show that innovation and scaling of NAND Flash memory continues moving at breakneck speed, one wonders when the end point of this shrinkage will finally come. And while the drive for NAND innovation has dramatically improved both the cost and performance of the technology, moving to ever smaller die sizes is beginning to have severe consequences on data storage reliability and flash endurance – challenges which must be addressed not only by the supporting hardware technologies but also by the file system and flash management software. Bottom line: Will the devices you’re responsible for provide the performance, life span and flexibility your customers require? What contingencies should you be planning for as the storage technologies get ever smaller?

Learn more about Datalight flash management software

While listening to NPR this week I caught a story on a new artificial heart developed by the Texas Heart Institute. What’s cool is that the device promises to overcome some of the inherent limitations of older technologies that led to premature failure – such as pumps wearing out or breaking down, and blood clots. It uses a completely different mechanism than prior attempts at mechanical replacements that relied on valves and pumps. What’s creepy is that recipients of this new type of heart that uses rotors HAVE NO PULSE! I imagine this dramatic change will have significant implications for related medical technology such as blood pressure and heart monitoring devices and will require new ways of assessing patient status. The assumptions we’ve made about the necessity of a pulse to indicate life go out the window.

As I think more about it, I see some parallels to other technology advances that call us to re-examine assumptions. In the quest for solutions to problems, humans first attempt to mimic existing devices – such as pumping hearts or flapping bird wings, but the successful and innovative solutions often are completely different – non-pulsing hearts and fixed wing aircraft.

The world of digital storage offers yet another parallel. When solid state storage came on the scene in the late 1990’s, the approach to enabling adoption was to make the new flash technology mimic the old rotating media in a hard disk. Low level system software – like our FlashFX – made this new technology appear to the higher levels in the system as a hard disk, minimizing the changes for applications. But over time the underlying flash technology has become more sophisticated than hard drives and moved beyond simple read and write commands. Take the recent advances in e•MMC just announced by JEDEC, for example. If we want to truly enable these innovations for applications, the whole software stack needs to toss out old assumptions. Datalight will be leading the charge and developing a new generation of software that defends against the shortcomings of the technology while embracing its strengths. Hopefully this will pave the way for many innovations such as new medical monitoring devices that can determine health and life without finding a pulse.

The topic of storage technology seemed to be everywhere at last week’s Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, appearing in numerous key note speeches, presentations and exhibit booths.  It appears the industry is waking up to the difficulties of storing and managing a torrent of data being produced by new mobile applications.

Micron’s presence both on the show floor and conference sessions highlighted their philosophy of creating application-specific storage technologies. In particular, Tom Eby’s keynote address considered both ends of the device and storage spectrum, dividing the market into devices that run applications and those that don’t, that is, devices that demand LOTS of Storage and those that run on meager memory systems (i.e., feature phones).  An interesting side note for Micron customers, Tom announced Micron’s Product Longevity Program (also referred to as PLP) which assures developers availability of Micron flash parts for a 10 year period – especially helpful for makers of long-life-cycle embedded products. Also from Micron, Wanmo Wong gave an excellent presentation on flash file system options for Linux and Android in which he expounded a laundry list of questions that must be answered when making that selection. It was just the right amount of detail for a Linux and flash memory newbie, highlighting the sheer number of issues that must be addressed when selecting the right flash file system for a particular application.

The Woz’ (Steve Wozniak, chief scientist at Fusion-IO) gave a lively fireside chat on the challenges and roadblocks for passionate engineers, from societal problems like our school systems’ failure to nurture brilliant engineering minds, to the difficult balance between getting a (sometimes tedious) job done and following your engineering passion.

Virtually every storage technology was on display from the embedded storage vendors around the globe, from PCM (Phase Change Memory) chips, to eMMC 4.41 parts, to on-board storage, USB and 2-1/2 inch HDD form factor solutions.  Flash storage solutions were presented by Apacer, Innodisk, Viking, STEC and others.  In a sea of slick memory packaging, the Viking example below really screamed embedded to me…

On the Android front, Datalight demonstrated how open source and great proprietary solutions can come together and give developers the best of both worlds. Our temporary home in booth 2320 featured this sneak preview of our upcoming Android support on a TI Beagle board. The tiny-but-slick Android demo is shown at Jimm’s right elbow.

Learn more about Datalight products for Linux/Android

We’ve received a bit of feedback on our Bootstrapping Linux from NAND Flash with FlashFX Tera and Reliance Nitro whitepaper. Questions that have come up regarding this whitepaper include: “The sample project included in the whitepaper demonstrated booting from NOR rather than NAND, is it possible for the bootloader to reside in NAND?” and “Is booting from NAND reliable?”

I talked with Datalight Software Architect Bill Roman, the author of the whitepaper, to answer these questions…

Question: The sample project included in the whitepaper demonstrated booting from NOR rather than NAND, is it possible for the bootloader to reside in NAND?

Bill:

Yes, you can boot from NAND. The sample for the whitepaper was done on NOR partly so the example would be more simple and thus easier to understand, and because of the functionality of the board that we were working with. The main topic was how to read the Linux kernel from a Reliance Nitro root file system on flash managed by FlashFX Tera. How the bootloader initially gets loaded into RAM is an implementation detail. Some platforms make booting directly from NAND easy, while some can’t do this at all, and thus require some NOR flash.

To boot from NAND there are two stages required. The details of the first-stage loader are very platform-specific. Typically, the processor manufacturer would provide documentation and help to do this –this is why the focus for the whitepaper was on the second stage.

Question: Is booting from NAND reliable?

Bill:

Loading the initial bootloader from NAND can be made quite reliable. Most NAND manufacturers guarantee the first erase block to be entirely error-free for some limited number of erase cycles. This allows an unchanging first-stage loader to be stored there, which then typically finds and loads the second stage loader (the main topic of the white paper).

If you’d like to check out the whitepaper, download here:

Our CEO Roy Sherrill visited CES last week and made note of a few trends that caught his eye. Here are his thoughts from the show floor:

All-in-one Devices – Over the last few years, we self-described technology geeks have seen our phone morph into a camera, an MP3 player, an internet connection/email  viewer, and about a hundred other functions spanning the range between the necessary and the ridiculous. In spite of all this convergence though, the sheer number of computers we rely on on a daily basis seems to be growing not shrinking – TV  set-top boxes, car navigation and media servers, work laptop, home laptop, tablet computer and so on.  How many devices do we really need to run our lives?  How do we keep all these computers synched and updated with the latest software? How do we organize and locate all the files we have stored on all these computers?

This year at CES, we saw manufacturers attempting to answer all these questions with another question: What if a single device could act as your laptop, cell phone, automotive computer, content viewing device, camera, and video server?

The convergence movement effort is not new. The first attempts involved terminal servers – one computer to contain all your data with internet access.  It was a good start, but not very practical beyond centralizing your work and home computers. Then, a few years ago the solution of data mobility via USB drive made an appearance – just plug in the USB drive into whichever computer was closest to you. Your application suite stayed on the USB drive so even your apps traveled with you. It was a nice idea, but the user still had to locate a computer, not always an easy task as anyone who travels for work will tell you.

Enter the Motorola Atrix. This smartphone was by far the coolest gadget I saw at CES this year, and represents Motorola’s attempt to retake lost marketshare since the heady first days of the RAZR. It contains two 1GHZ CPUs, 16GB of onboard storage, and room for additional media cards, and is designed to be used as a full computer by plugging it into a dumb terminal (actually a laptop-sized keyboard and screen). It also supports HDMI video output so it can drive a full-size HDTV. Could a phone double as your laptop, tablet, cell, camera, payment identification, automotive computer, and media server?  The Atrix is expected to be out in the first quarter of 2011, and cost has not yet been announced.

I’m anxious to see what kind of reception it gets.  The biggest issue I see with the Atrix in its current (prototypical) form is a lack of storage capacity. Even with Android’s relatively small footprint, 16GB + slots doesn’t leave a lot of room for performing the functions of a PC, media server, and all the other functions the device will be tasked with.  No doubt this is something the great minds at Motorola are tackling as I write this, so we will just have to wait and see what the final product looks like.

Full Laptop powered by the Atrix phone

Android – The OS that’s eating everybody’s lunch in the mobile world was everywhere at CES this year.   There are Android cell phones, Android tablets, Android TVs and too many other Android devices to recount.  The Android App store was both being sold in concept (“Soon there will even be an app for that too”), and actual specific applications to manage just about everything.  This was the year of Android at CES… well at least till next year!

3D – Everybody’s got it.   TV’s are the primary focus of 3D, but videogame makers are dipping their collective toes into the3D waters as well. The only question I had was; who’s going to shell out the bucks to have their friends laugh at those 1950s glasses?   3D is also coming to the smart phone arena with the use of special glasses that make the phones’ video appear to be displayed on a big screen nine feet away.  Some glasses are also wired for sound with ear pieces!

Cordless Power – There were several companies showing off their cordless power modules, capable of recharging devices without connecting a cable.  One that caught my eye was from Fulton Innovation, and provided not just power, but automatic detection and communication between the circuit being powered and the host.  Check out the picture below showing one possible application for this technology: a grocery shelf that is cordlessly powering lighted boxes of Cheerios. That’s right, the product name actually lights up on the box! In this imagined scenario, the communications component also helps with inventory control and tells the store how many boxes are on the shelf. Fulton’s other examples included a kitchen counter with multiple cordless appliances and an electric car powered by a charging element in the garage floor.

Pictures and video on cordless power -including the illuminated Cheerios box!

Telematics – If the displays at CES are any indication, Ford’s Sync appears to be the king of the hill in automotive computing today.  Ford Synch is powered by Microsoft’s Sync platform with voice commands, navigation, entertainment, car management, and more.   One Ex-Ford engineer I spoke to at the show remarked that he was amazed at Fords progress in this area. When he worked at Ford in 2000, he said management did not seem open to innovation in automotive computing.

Ford’s new display

New advances in heads-up display (culled from 80s-era military programs) were also displayed at the show.  The technology allows drivers to keep their eyes on the road and view the dashboard information directly on the windshield.  This latest version of heads-up technology is expected to be available in a year or two.

Hyundai’s Blue Link had a good showing at CES.   I was not able to tell much difference between it and the Ford product that many say is top of the line.   A Hyundai Blue Link is shown below.

Dovetailing nicely with the aforementioned Motorola Atrix, Hyundai also demonstrated the concept of an Android cell phone providing the Telematics solution, with specialized apps for Hyundai car management. Among the benefits of using a personal device to do automotive computing is that when you drive another car, your music, maps, address book and possibly driving/comfort adjustments would travel with you (e.g., moving the seat and steering column and adjusting the car’s temperature could be app-controlled).

Hundai’s Blue Link page

Other Stuff

Live music is required for any good event!

Sand Castles are always a hit at events, especially when you need to take pictures of stuff!

RIM was pitching the Play book!

Picture of the Play book!

We were excited to read about this week’s release of the new Motorola MC9500. This slick new member of the MC9000 rugged mobile computer family includes features like swappable keypad, modular 3.5G WAN with support for GSM HSDPA or CDMA-EVDO Rev A wireless broadband connectivity in one device, screen orientation sensor, battery lifespan management and lots of other bells and whistles. We were even more excited to see a report from Computerworld that Fedex has already ordered 100,000 units!

Open the box containing your new electronic device and you can count on the presence of one other item tucked in under the plastic bags, tie wraps, and tiny, barely readable user manuals: the umbilical cord. According to a recent Nielsen/Netratings report, 89.4% of us connect our gadgets to a Windows host machine, underscoring how crucial it is for manufacturers to consider file system compatibility with the Windows desktop. The ubiquity of the FAT (File Allocation Table) file system makes exchangeability easy for those of us who create embedded designs, but FAT is also the cause of a lot that goes wrong with these devices. If you design embedded systems for a living, FAT is like a friend who is always there for you, but who undermines your most brilliant work and holds your designs back from embedded greatness.

FAT, oft updated since being developed by Bill Gates and Marc McDonald for late 1970’s desktop computing, still uses the same basic architecture. As a result, many of its original problems are still with us. For designers in the embedded space, the quirks of this clunky and aging file system are familiar and particularly problematic: corruption when power is cut, excessive fragmentation causing slug-like performance, and wasted disk space due to inefficient memory allocation. Corruption on FAT is especially noticeable on removable media when the media is removed while write operations are happening.

Reliable, better performing options such as ext3 are out there, but files are not useable by a Windows host machine, a deal breaker for most embedded OEMs (remember the 89.4%?). At Datalight, we’ve addressed the issue with our Reliance file system and a simple driver called RWD (Reliance Windows Driver). Once loaded on the host machine, RWD allows Reliance-formatted media to be read and used on the Windows host. With Reliance and RWD, OEMs and their customers no longer have to choose between reliability, performance and exchangeability. Check out the press release announcing our new RWD version 2.0 with support for Windows Vista.

Datalight announced today the release of RWD 2.0, an installable driver which makes data from devices using its acclaimed Reliance file system exchangeable with computers running Windows Vista or Windows XP operating systems. Read full press release