SST has added 512 Mbyte, 1 Gbyte and 2 Gbyte industrial-grade devices to its NANDrive family of ATA solid-state storage products. The devices can be used for in-cabin automotive applications. Measuring 12 mm x 24 mm x 1.4 mm and employing single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash, the drives are rated for operation at temperatures between -40 and +85 °C. Samples of the 85LD0512 (512 Mbyte), 85LD1001T (1 Gbyte) and 85LD1002U (2 Gbyte) NANDrive products are available, with volume production scheduled to begin in April. Prices are $17.25, $30.39, and $57.33 respectively in 10,000-unit quantities.
Frank Lin, SST vice president, product marketing and new product development, said the devices were developed “to give embedded designers a high-capacity solid-state storage solution with low power consumption and a small form factor that can withstand the temperature extremes and high-impact conditions typical of industrial and automotive applications." He added that traditional magnetic hard disk drives “typically don't perform well in stressful physical conditions."
SST said the NANDrive family manages all NAND flash complexities and allows designers to quickly integrate mass data storage solutions into their designs without having to make any firmware changes. Because NANDrive complies with the standard ATA protocol there is no need to change host-side vendor-specific software whenever there is a change in the controller or a change to new NAND flash devices. The devices feature an 8-bit ECC hardware engine; a firmware programmable, multitasking NAND interface, a unique 20-byte serial ID number for data encryption, and up to four protection zones that customers can use to store boot code.