SSDs fit for rugged environments

White Electronic Designs Corp. has released a surface mountable solid-state drive specifically designed for use in the rugged and demanding embedded environments of defense and aerospace applications.

The product is available in 1-, 2- and 4Gbyte densities in a 22mm x 27mm PBGA package and supports various PATA interface protocols. This product provides highly reliable high-density data storage for embedded computing, such as that used in aircraft, communications and missiles.

"These products were engineered specifically for the defense market, with features designed to ensure data reliability in mission critical rugged and mobile systems. As a natural extension of our MCP and SiP technologies, these devices bring big features in a miniaturized package," stated Mark Downey, director of defense technology at White Electronics. "This is really just the beginning of more to come from us in the storage area. We are listening to what our defense customers want from a solid state storage provider and plan to deliver on those requirements with commitment and focus."

Constructed using a 32bit RISC processor as its core storage controller, this SSD provides all the important flash management techniques for delivering a highly reliable solution. Incorporated wear leveling and error correction techniques extend disk operating life. The device provides data protection in the event of a sudden unplanned power loss or disturbance and can operate from a single 5- or 3.3V power supply. Constructed using single-level cell NAND-based storage technology, it delivers significantly higher performance than the many other embedded form factor SSDs being produced by the general market.

The PBGA package is constructed using eutectic tin-lead solder balls on a 1.27mm pitch with strategically placed signals to extend device life in harsh environments. It supports ATA/PCMCIA 2.1, compact flash 3.0 and 4.0 compliant interfaces. Additionally, the PBGA saves 150mm? board space compared to an equivalent discrete design.