13X Improvement in 24nm cMLC NAND Flash Memory Endurance by Stec

STEC, Inc. has validated its proprietary CellCare technology’s ability to extend the endurance of 24nm consumer-grade multi-level cell (cMLC) NAND flash memory to 40,000 program/erase cycles.

This represents an increase of greater than 13 times the manufacturer’s specified endurance metric of 3,000 program/erase cycles. This is a advancement in one of the company’s core technologies, as it provides for the development of a new generation of STEC’s enterprise-class SSDs that utilizes low-cost cMLC NAND chips, while still achieving 10 full capacity random writes to the drive each day for five years, and data retention for three months (at 40°C) – all with no degradation in performance.

This equates to approximately 7.3PB being written to a 400GB SSD over the life of the drive.

"The results of the 24nm cMLC endurance testing, performed at our San Diego R&D center, are testimony that the solid flash management algorithms and digital signal processing/ error correction code within our patented CellCare Technology bring true enterprise-class capabilities to consumer-grade flash memory," said Pablo Ziperovich, STEC’s VP, Flash Channel Development. "We have now tested the use of lower-cost 24nm cMLC NAND with our CellCare Technology to withstand the rigorous workload environments of enterprise storage applications–specifically, to provide for 40,000 program/erase cycles."

After applying STEC’s CellCare technology in combination with its fourth-generation ASIC-based SSD controller, STEC engineers performed a series of JEDEC standard tests, including a program/erase endurance and data retention stress test; a stress-test-driven qualification of integrated circuits; and a SSD requirements and endurance test.

Results of the endurance testing:
Key Metric: 24nm cMLC NAND Flash / 24nm cMLC NAND Flash with CellCare

• Endurance: 3,000 / 40,000
• Retention (EOL): 3 months at 40° C / 3 months at 40° C
• ECC: 40b/1KB / 32b/1KB
• Program Speed: 1.5ms / 1.5ms (controlled)
• Erase Speed: 4ms / 10ms (controlled)
• Read Retry (EOL): up to 100% / <0.011%

"This announcement opens up a lot of new opportunities, as cost is king in NAND and SSDs," said Alan Niebel, founder and CEO for Web-Feet Research, Inc. "Being able to take consumer-grade MLC NAND from 3,000 cycles to 40,000 cycles presents a huge leap in cost-effective enterprise endurance – enabling much more adoption."

"The intelligence embedded in STEC’s SSD controller via CellCare technology is truly remarkable," said Gregory Wong, founder and principal analyst for Forward Insights. "The dramatic endurance-extending capabilities of CellCare technology on 24nm consumer-grade flash will help accelerate the proliferation of cost-effective SSDs to the enterprise."

CellCare technology is a proprietary combination of hardware and firmware working together to improve MLC flash performance and endurance throughout the life of the drive.

Key endurance-extending features
of this patented technology include:

• Flash parameter tracking per die, which delivers reduced and controlled wear;
• Flash management through the lifetime, which delivers reduced wear, controlled performance, improved performance, and lower write/read latency; and
• Advanced error correction with digital signal processing to improve data reliability and require a minimum of re-reads.

CellCare technology is embedded in STEC’s full line of MLC NAND-based enterprise-class solid-state solutions, including its PCIe solid-state accelerators, ZeusIOPS SAS SSDs, and MACH16 SATA SSDs. 24nm cMLC NAND flash-based SSDs are currently in development and testing, with production anticipated for later this year.