IDT Announces Native PCIe Supported Flash Controller for Enterprise-Class SSDs in Partnership with Micron Technology

IDT ( www.idt.com , Country Manager for Korea: Sang-Yup Lee), an analog-digital company leading the core mixed-signal semiconductor solutions market, announced today the industry's first single-chip enterprise-grade flash controller supporting native PCIe (PCI Express)®. This controller was jointly developed with Micron for exclusive use in Micron Technology's (NASDAQ: MU) recently introduced P320h PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) systems. Micron's new PCIe SSD targets high-performance enterprise applications requiring advanced controllers to meet the stringent requirements of today's demanding enterprise environments. The newly announced product is the result of a product development and licensing agreement signed between IDT and Micron in 2009 to jointly develop PCIe-based controllers that deliver exceptional SSD performance and enterprise-grade reliability.

Enterprise-grade SSDs are being rapidly adopted due to their higher performance and lower power consumption compared to HDDs (Hard Disk Drives). However, due to new NAND flash architectures and multi-die flash packages, available flash bandwidth is exceeding the throughput of existing SATA and SAS storage interconnects. PCI Express flash controllers overcome these bottlenecks to deliver superior performance, while reducing system power consumption and latency by directly connecting SSDs to the processor's PCIe host bus without the need for existing storage infrastructure. IDT's PCIe enterprise flash controller enables OEMs and SSD partners to immediately benefit from this new technology through high-performance enterprise-grade PCIe flash controllers.

Gary Gentry, General Manager of the Enterprise Business Unit at Micron’s NAND Solutions Group, stated, “Micron’s P320h PCIe SSD is leading the performance of enterprise-class applications. Achieving this performance with the P320h requires the tight integration of industry-leading NAND flash and controllers. The PCIe and DDR interface designs prepared by IDT for this controller played a key role in enabling Micron to deliver best-in-class PCIe SSD solutions.”

Kam Eshghi, Senior Marketing Officer at IDT’s Enterprise Computing Business Unit, explained, “Through the collaboration between IDT and Micron, an enterprise-grade PCIe SSD solution has been created that significantly boosts performance over existing storage interfaces and delivers industry-leading cost per IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second). IDT worked closely with Micron to develop this solution, addressing end customers’ performance requirements based on enterprise-grade reliability.”

IDT, a leader in PCI Express solutions, supplies the industry's most comprehensive suite of PCI Express switch, bridge, repeater, retimer, and timing solution products. More information about IDT's PCI Express solutions can be found at www.idt.com/go/PCIe .