AgigA Tech expands portfolio with highest-density non-volatile DDR3 solution for critical data back-up

Flash Memory Summit 2010, POWAY, USA: AgigA Tech Inc., a subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor Corp., announced the industry’s highest-density DDR3 solution as part of its family of high-speed, battery-free non-volatile RAM systems.

The new solutions in the AGIGARAM non-volatile system (NVS) family deliver densities up to 8 gigabytes (GB) providing flexibility to system architects and designers to tailor non-volatile memory for specific application requirements. As the industry’s first to sample a 1 GB non-volatile DDR3 solution, AgigA Tech now extends the market’s broadest portfolio of battery-free non-volatile memory solutions with these newly introduced products.

The AGIGARAM product family merges NAND Flash, DRAM and a battery-free ultracapacitor power source into a highly reliable non-volatile memory system. When used as a write cache in enterprise-class applications, AGIGARAM provides a performance-boosting building block while guarding against power failures and consequent loss of critical data. The DDR3 products deliver data transfer speeds up to 1333 MT/s (megatransfers per second).

AgigA Tech offers unique product support to boost reliability, including extensive ultracapacitor testing with a dedicated test lab, in-system health monitoring, a system safe control protocol, and a product warranty up to the operating life of the system.

“AgigA Tech is completely focused on providing highly reliable non-volatile memory solutions to our customers,” said Ron Sartore, CEO of AgigA Tech. “Our newest additions to the AGIGARAM portfolio deliver worry-free data-protection with DDR3-1333 performance, and demonstrate our leadership commitment to the market.”

Complementing the nvSRAM offerings from Cypress, the AGIGARAM system scales and extends nonvolatile solutions to much higher densities. The next best high-density alternative, battery-backed memories, can offer high speeds, but are subject to numerous problems, such as hazardous material issues, increased design complexity, long charge times, limited operating life, and a high total cost of ownership.

The AGIGARAM system solves these problems with a novel use of a battery-free power sub-system, teamed with high-speed SDRAM, NAND Flash, intelligent power management and a proprietary system controller. During normal operation, the AGIGARAM system appears as a DDR3-registered DIMM to the host system, providing all the benefits and speed of a standard high-speed, high-density SDRAM.

In the event of a power loss, the AGIGARAM system can be commanded to take control of the SDRAM and transfer its contents to Flash memory using energy from its ultracapacitor power source, thereby preserving all the SDRAM data. After power is restored, the AGIGARAM system can be commanded to transfer the contents back into the SDRAM and returns control to the host system.

This function can be used for power interruption/loss immunity, write caching and posting, data logging and journaling, instant-on recovery, and service and maintenance processing.