Santa Clara-based SanDisk Corp has launched a solid-state ATA data storage system, the Flash Chipset, which it claims is the smallest embeddable one available. ATA is the mobile equivalent of the IDE desktop personal computer interface. It is available in 2Mb, 4Mb and 10Mb memory capacities, all of which can be doubled with Stacker compression software, and has an integrated Flash controller chip. This chip was developed jointly with Motorola Inc, using a 68000 core processor and the associated logic, buffer memory and microcode ROM. It enables the chip set to perform many of the functions of a high-performance disk drive including dynamic defect management and error correction code algorithms, rather than burdening the host system with performing those functions. The chip set has been designed to provide high capacity, small form factor storage device for lightweight, mobile electronics products and will compete against socket Flash in read-write-intensive data storage applications. At capacities of 4Mb and above, the company said the chip set is less expensive than socket Flash and takes up less space on a board. It is shipping now with volume prices of $60 for 2Mb, $85 for 4Mb and $195 for the 10Mb chip set.
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