Mobile Flash Needs No Controller

June 24, 2002

NAND flash is great for mobile applications—especially with M-Systems' Mobile DiskOnChip. The chip not only includes its own controller, its 1-kbyte boot block can reduce a system's overall bill of materials. Using an intelligent flash...

William G. Wong

Using an intelligent flash chip lets the host ignore things like wear-leveling, since the chip handles this transparently. Up to four chips can be used without additional circuitry. The chip has sustained read and write speeds of 3 and 1.5 Mbits/s, respectively.

Each chip contains a unique ID. A one-time programming area can be used for application-specific information such as serial numbers or encryption keys. Protected access to the flash memory also is possible. The chip supports 8-, 16-, and 32-bit processors.

Available now in 16- and 32-Mbyte versions, the Mobile DiskOnChip comes in a 9- by 12-mm BGA package. Pricing starts at $0.50/Mbyte in OEM quantities of 500,000 pieces.

M-Systems Inc., www.m-sys.com; (510) 494-2090; fax: (510) 494-5545.

About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.

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