Arasan releases NAND flash file system software

SAN JOSE, USA: Arasan Chip Systems Inc. has released its NAND Flash File System (FFS) software. This portable NAND FFS complements Arasan's proven ONFI 2.2 NAND Memory Controller IP cores.

The growing sophistication of devices such as media players, gaming consoles, smartphones and netbooks has resulted in a dramatic increase in software and non-volatile data storage requirements. Storage of boot code, proprietary data, security keys, media files and user generated content requires a robust FFS to manage this content.

Arasan's NAND Flash File system abstracts the management of NAND memory, to ease its use by application level software. It automates handling of garbage collection, bad block management and wear-leveling management. The FFS is architected to be easily ported to multiple OS and platforms and supports multiple file systems.

It can interface to both SLC and MLC types of NAND memory, allowing the system designers to trade-off between reliability and storage capacity. By integrating wear-leveling, the FFS extends the life of the NAND memory array. Architected to have a low host processor overhead, this FFS can easily be used in embedded devices for improved boot speed, higher security and reliability.

Commenting on the growing content and complexity of non-volatile memory in embedded systems and consumer electronics, Somnath Viswanath, Product Marketing Manager at Arasan said: "While the introduction of managed NAND memory solutions, simplified the development of NAND memory controllers in SoCs, there is still a significant amount of processing that needs to be done in software. Arasan's NAND FFS handles this complexity to simplify application development while ensuring efficient utilization of the underlying NAND memory array."

Arasan complements this software with its portfolio of NAND Memory Controller IP cores which support the latest ONFI 2.2 specification. The IP cores support the highest transfer modes of up to 166MBps (in Sync mode 4) and 200MBps (in Sync mode 5) while incorporating all of the new features of ONFI 2.2 such as enhanced power management, ECC information, interleaved reads, small data movement and other commands that improve performance. The IP core can also stop the clock during writes to save power.

Arasan provides a Total IP Solution for its NAND Memory IP consisting of RTL source code for NAND Memory controllers, verification IP, Flash File system software, hardware development kits and documentation all backed by our World-class customer support.