NAND-Flash-based storage solutions are used in many devices of our daily life. Looking to professional applications like industrial, medical, NetCom or automotive applications, the storage system must be extremely reliable and secure since it is often the backbone of the business. More than 2% of the global energy is used just for data storage, which makes the demand clear to develop a very power-efficient system. Understanding this need, the PENTA XSR-FMC project developed a very reliable, secure and ultra-low power flash memory controller using a European supply chain.
Background, objectives of the project and challenges
Data storage, using NAND Flash, is used in many professional applications. In the past the “industrial” applications were more legacy like, using form factors like USB, SD or eMMC. 5G/6G NetCom application, plus autonomous driving, have at least the same reliability needs, but require higher data rates in combination with security and safety aspects.
The political discussions of the last years showed that information technology is of national/EU interest. Therefore, a controller developed in the EU and to establish a European engineering- and production chain was a defined project target. The development of a NAND flash-based storage system requires special know-how in various categories, starting with system architecture and ending up with PCB and production related topics. Looking just a bit more to the details, a lot of specialized IPs are needed, which must all fit in to the system context. An early question to answer was which semiconductor technology is best suited? The decision to use the 22nm SOI technology was an easy one. This technology has with ABB (Advanced Body Biasing) benefits in the triangle of power- performance- cost. Furthermore, this technology is by a factor of magnitude better in terms of alpha particle resistance. Finally, the production is in Germany.
Racyics made their ABB library available for all partners. Extoll developed the PCIe Gen4 Phy and integrated the PCIe controller IP. The data throughput for one flash channel was defined of up to 1.6GT/s. In this range optimized Pads are not suited, which is the reason why an Onfi Phy system was developed.
To supply and to control the system with the right voltage level, SiliconGate developed a set of analogue IP. A flash controller cannot be reliable without a powerful Error-Correction-Code (ECC). HTWG Konstanz did investigations for the best-suited algorithms (performance, power, area). They also analyzed the bit errors, to understand in detail the flash behavior. The developed algorithms were later used in the context of post-quantum cryptography. Fraunhofer IZM looked for packaging technology. Thermo-mechanical simulations were done and with Thin-Flex Embedding a new packaging technology reached the prototyping phase. Tiempo-Secure designed a complete Secure Element with a secured RISC-V architecture, that has been prototyped on the GF 22nm SOI process and that successfully completed a Common Criteria EAL5+ AVA_VAN.5 security evaluation. The top level design and firmware development happened at Hyperstone.
Technological achievements
In this project more than a dozen IP was generated, including two high speed PHY’s. Beside the mentioned ones three different RISC-V implementations were used in the project. The most powerful one is a 9 stage, dual thread, multi core solution, based on the open EH2 implementation, but with a couple of enhancements and a lot of verification spent. In general, a completely new platform for a next generation flash controller was developed. This platform is easier scalable and can be used in combination with other interfaces like UFS or similar. The controller can support the latest flash technologies, supporting the Onfi and the ToggleNand standard. The ABB library from Racyics helped a lot to reduce the power. For the main contributor to the cell area, the LDPC engine, the leakage was reduced by 85% compared to a zero-body-biasing approach. With MRAM a new technology was used by Tiempo-Secure. The positive experience reduces the hurdle for all partners to use this technology in their future product developments. It wasn’t foreseen that HTWG Konstanz gets active in the security domain. Their investigation in the ECC domain brough new idea how Post Quantum Cryptography could be realized in a very efficient way. Since security was one key aspect of this project, changing the focus from ECC to security was a very good decision. Fraunhofer IZM helped in two ways. With their thermos mechanical simulations they gave an inside that is very useful for the physical design of an SSD drive. With Thin Flex Embedding a future oriented packaging technology was developed, which is of interest for ultra-thin form factors like μSD or similar.
Starting the development of a new firmware was triggered by this project. This was driven by the new hardware platform in combination with the performance targets. The new firmware architecture is future oriented regarding different performance profiles and changes to the interfaces. In addition, a completely new development framework was established, that will shorten project times.
Market Potential
In this project a system was developed, that covers many IPs. Very interesting to see, is the general interest of the industry to these IPs. Although the consortium thought and act in the system context every partner has its own new or extended marked, enabled by this project. The likelihood is high that a commercial product will be based on the realized developments. In this scenario the established partnership can be activated, which will speed up the development. To enable efficient work, an infrastructure was developed and set-up, that manages the data exchange and similar things. This isn’t countable in numbers for market potential but enables a faster time to market. Many things done in this project can be used (with adaptations) in combination with Chiplet technology. The following diagrams show the market forecast for SSD storage, which will be dominated by PCIe based systems. A doubling in the data throughput every 3 years is a fact, that shows the dynamic in this segment. The chiplet approach will enable a modular approach to keep pace with the very fast increase in date throughput.
Societal & Economic Impact
The project opened the chance to establish an SMI-based European network to develop a very reliable, secure and ultra-low power flash memory controller. This chance was taken, and a real partnership was established. This partnership isn’t only related to this project. During the project run-time, but not in the project context, the partners used the special expertise available in consortium. The online and face to face meetings helped a lot to get a better technical understanding but also to establish new business relationships.
Discover more about this project’s impact and future developments here.
PENTA is an Eureka Cluster operated by AENEAS.