Global Unichip has announced the mass-production of its ARM7-based GP5080 series SSD SoC platform solution, targeting the storage application for the booming market of netbooks/smartbooks, ultra-thin notebooks, UMPCs, MIDs and other portable consumer electronics. Major requirements for this kind of applications are small form factor, low power consumption and durability. All these systems mentioned above are potential clients to access the ubiquitous web applications and this SSD solution is the first product of a series of upcoming cloud computing oriented solutions Global Unichip intended to offer.
There are two different lineups in this series. GP5080 is optimized for cost sensitive applications by removing the need for external DRAM cache, while GP5086 supports DRAM cache for applications in need for extra extended lifetime. The complete GP5080 design kit includes SoC samples, evaluation board, reference design. With GP5080 series solution, SSD makers or system providers can provide quality products for customers with substantially reduced development cost and time-to-market.
According to the company, GP5080 series solution is a highly integrated SSD SoC, based on advanced 90nm process technology. Its architecture has been optimized to utilize the maximum data transfer of NAND flash with minimum operating power. The four independent flash channels deliver sequential and random read/write performance and support all major vendors' SLC/MLC NAND flash devices. The SSD reliability is guaranteed by the on-chip hardware BCH-ECC engine which can correct up to 16 bit errors per 512 byte data. The featured 32-bit ARM7 processor will provide computing capability for advanced SSD management firmware, such as flash translation layer, bad block management, wear leveling algorithm, power fail recycling, SMART function, and disk recovery/ROM disk. In addition, it supports PATA and SATA2 dual interface to provide extra flexibility and wide temperature range from negative 40 centigrade to 85 centigrade for industry-grade applications.
Global Unichip will exhibit GP5080 SoC platform and reference SSD solutions at Shenzhen CPSE 2009 Surveillance Show.
Article translated by Meiling Chen
