Swissbit S-46 SD and S-46u Micro SD Memory Cards in pSLC Technology

Swissbit AG presents its S-46 and S-46u series SD and Micro SD memory cards for applications demanding endurance and performance.

S-46 SD card

Both products combine the market’s latest MLC flash components with a page based firmware translation layer (FTL) and a single bit per cell storage mode. This results in highest random performance and an endurance that exceeds that of industry standard SD memory cards.

The S-46 SD memory cards with capacity from 2GB to 64GB and S-46u Micro SD memory cards from 2GB up to 16GB, work in a storage mode where only a single bit is used per MLC cell. This pSLC mode can be operated much faster than standard MLC mode and increases the permitted program-erase (PE) cycles of MLC from the specified 3k to 20k.

Under equal conditions this increases the endurance by a factor of 6.6 at doubled bit cost. In addition the sub-page based FTL allows the firmware to reduce the write amplification to low values especially for random writes. Compared to standard industrial SD memory cards the resulting endurance can be up to 600 times greater. The S-46/S-46u cards comply with UHS-I bus mode, up to speed class 10 and offer a sequential data rate close to 50MB/s and a random write data rate of up to 1,400 IO/s.

S-46u Micro SD card

These products are equipped with the read disturb management (RDM) alongside an autonomous, performance-neutral background ‘auto refresh’ process. This type of data care management extends the data reliability especially in read intensive applications. Thanks to the sub-page based management the busy time is kept below the specified limit under all conditions, allowing a high sustained IO/s rate and guaranteeing compatibility with the most industrial and networking SD applications.

By using pSLC mode, the protection against data loss during a sudden power fail had been improved.

The supporting Swissbit life time monitor (SLTM) offers detailed status information about the cards and provides a valuable prediction of the expected lifetime allowing for scheduled maintenance.

Samples will be available beginning Q4 2016.