Link_A_Media Devices shipping LDPC SoC in mainstream 2.5-inch HDD products

SANTA CLARA, USA: Link_A_Media Devices (LAMD), a leader in the development of semiconductor SoC solutions for the data storage market, announces its low-density parity check (LDPC)-based SOC device is currently shipping in mainstream 2.5-inch mobile hard disk drive (HDD) products.

The mobile 2.5-inch form factor is the fastest growing segment of the HDD market, used in laptop computers, gaming consoles, USB external drives, and other consumer devices where cost and power consumption requirements are paramount.

Today's HDD SOC data recovery architectures are mostly based on concatenated coding schemes which use Reed Solomon error correction codes, invented almost 50 years ago. Increasing the storage density of the HDD magnetic media reduces the quality of the data read by the head, due to increased noise. Today's architectures can no longer support HDD manufacturers’ requirements to double the storage capacity of their drives every 18 months.

The LAMD LDPC data recovery architecture can tolerate significantly more noise on the recording medium at the expense of increased complexity relative to Reed Solomon decoders. Now, by using LAMD’s LDPC-based SOC solutions, HDD vendors can continue to double the storage capacity of their drives every 18 months.

Deployed in 320 GB/disk HDD capacity products, both at 5400 rpm and 7200 rpm, LAMD’s current LDPC-based SOC device reduces the number of errors read from a disk from 1 in 100 to 1 in 100 Million bits of data, relative to the previously-used concatenated coding schemes. This enables more efficient utilization of the available disk surface to store more data and reduce the cost per gigabyte (GB) of storage.

"HDD areal density is growing at a rate of about 30 percent per year while storage capacity requirements are increasing by more than 40 percent per year," said John Rydning, IDC's research director for hard disk drives. "To keep pace with storage capacity growth, HDD vendors are compelled to squeeze more storage capacity out of the available areal density by employing novel technologies such as low density parity code now available in a new SoC from Link-A-Media, the first SoC supplier to enter the HDD market in more than 16 years."

"We are very pleased to help usher in this new era of LDPC data recovery technology in the mobile HDD segment. Achieving the right balance of performance, cost, and power consumption was critical for the commercial adoption of this very powerful and complex technology in the mobile HDD market," said Dr. Hemant Thapar, CEO, Link_A_Media Devices.

"We are currently extending our LDPC technology capability to other segments of the HDD storage market, enabling HDD manufacturers to achieve higher capacity points and lower their costs by increasing yields of head and media components."

Link_A_Media Devices' SOCs are manufactured by Renesas Electronics, a leading manufacturer and supplier of semiconductor products to the most demanding applications including automotive, PCs and mobile devices.