This document discusses the NAND flash ecosystem, including controller IP suppliers, controller ICs, SSD issues compared to HDDs, SSD market leaders, and startup companies. It provides information on companies that supply controller IP, major controller IC suppliers, top SSD manufacturers, enterprise SSD leaders, and startup companies working on SSD and controller technologies, such as Proton Digital, NxGn Data, CNex Labs, and DSSD.

1. NAND Flash Ecosystem
Sam Beal & Associates

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Flash Memory
source Statistica.com

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Controller IP Suppliers
• Anobit: adaptive MLC, 80+ patents (acquired by Apple)
• Arasan: eMMC, ONFI, UFS
• Cadence: ONFI
• Cyclic Design: ECC
• DensBits: ECC and DSP engines
• Eureka Tech: ONFI
• Eonsil: eMMC
• iWave: ONFI
• Synopsys: UFS
• Toshiba: UFS
• Wave Semiconductor: (LDPC IP or App note??)
• S2CInc: ONFI

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NAND Controller
ONFI
NAND die
NAND die
PCIe
SATA
USB
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Controller ICs
SM3263 USB3 with support for SLC, MLC, TLC
FerriseMMC NAND mangagement for eMMC 4.5
SM2246EN Supports Micron 16nm 128Gb MLC
with SATA 6Gbps
88SS1074 SSD Controller for 15nm TLC
88NV9145 PCI3 Gen2 for MLC 128Gb
88SS9187 SSD with SATA 6Gbps
SF3700 SATA + PCIeUSB3 with support for SLC,
MLC, TLC
Sandforce aquired
by Seagate
PS31-08 10/20nm up to 64 chip enables SATA

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Controller ICs
USB and Storage Card
• Alcor Micro
• ASMedia Technology
• Genesys Logic
• JMicron Technology
• Phison Electronics
• Silicon Motion Technology
• Skymedi
• VIA Labs

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Controllers / SSD / SSA
• EMC (DSSD)
• Fusion-io
• IBM-TMS
• Intel
• LSI (Sandforce)
• Micron
• NxGnData
• Hyperstone
• Kaminario
• Silicon Motion
• Nimbus Data
• Tegile Systems
• Greenliant
• Samsung
• SanDisk (Pliant, SmartStorage,
Fusion-IO)
• Seagate (Sandforce)
• Solid State Storage (Skyera)
• SuperTalent
• Toshiba (OCZ)
• WD (STEC, Virident)
• CISCO (WhipTail)
• Virtium
• Violin Memory (GridIron)
Consolidation to be continued

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SSD Issues (vs HDD)
• Random read (good)
• Random write (not so good)
• Read Latency & H/W overhead for ECC (MLC)
• Write amplication impact wear
– garbage collection, page remapping, wear
leveling, or data movement for retention
• Reliability
– “You go bankrupt gradually, then suddenly”
Ernest Hemingway

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SSD Market Leaders
2013 Industrial SSD
Rank Entry Level Mainstream SATA PCIe SAS
1 SanDisk Samsung Intel Fusion-io WD Apacer
2 Samsung Toshiba Samsung Google SanDIsk Viking Tech
3 Kingston Intel SanDisk(Smart Storage) NetApp Seagate Smart Modular
4 Adata Micron OCZ LSI Toshiba Unigen
5 Lite-On OCZ SanDisk WD Hitachi Transcend
PC SSD Enterprise SSD

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Startup Companies

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Proton Digital
• Funding
– $2M seed Feb 2013, Sanjay Srivastava (ex Denali CEO)
– No new funding or news since Aug 2013
• Team
– CEO Andrei Vityaev (LSI, Broadcom, Infineon)
– Marketing VP left for NxGn March ’14
• Product / Market
– LDPC IP, FPGA application layer strategy

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NxGn Data
• Funding
– California company, no SEC data
• Team
– CEO Nader Salessi (WD, Stec)
– VP Eng Minghau Lee (WD)
– VP Bus Dev – James Fife (ProtonDigital, Seagate/Stec)
– Vladmir Alves (WD, Morpho)
• Product / Market
– TLC SSD and Controller

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CNex Labs
• Funding
– $17M Sierra Ventures (Ben Yu)
– Michael RAAM (Micron, LSI Logic/Sandforce)
– Bill Moore ?
• Team
– CEO Alan Armstrong (VP Mktg, Marvell)
– VP Sales Joseph Defranco (VP Sales Marvell)
– VP Eng Yiren Huang (Huawei, Brocade, Sandforce)
• Product / Market
– Controller?

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DSSD
• Aquired by EMC May 5
• Founded by Andy Bechtolsheim Chairman
• CEO – Bill Moore (3Par)
• Application
– in-memory databases such as SAP's HANA;
– real-time analytics, especially using Hadoop;
– data-intensive workloads in government and
science, such as climate modeling, face
recognition and genomics.

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Virtualize Storage
• Flash Cache Modules – NetApp, Oracle, EMC
– Complement HDD dominant storage
• Adaptive Flash Platform – Nimble Storage
• Converged Cloud – the ultimate abstraction
– InMemory Computing – Oracle, SAP
– CPU + Storage - Nutanix