IC design houses Genesys Logic and Alcor Micro are expected to see their revenues grow over 20% sequentially in the second quarter of 2010 buoyed by increasing shipments of USB 3.0 controller chips, according to industry sources.

Genesys indicated that it has started shipping, in small volume, its second-generation USB 3.0-SATA bridge controllers, with the third-generation of its kind to be available in the third quarter of 2010. Overall, USB 3.0 chips will contribute over 3% to its total revenues in the second half.

Meanwhile, industry sources indicated that Alcor Micro has landed orders for USB card reader controllers for LCD TV application from a major player in Korea, which will help drive up its USB controller shipments.

Super Talent is pushing out a new line of Compact Flash cards, then CFast series.  The CFast has a maximum bandwidth of 375MBs which is nearly four times faster than a traditional high end CF card at 90MBs.

The new CFast storage card breaks the speed bottleneck between the SSD and the device by using a SATA interface. Super Talent has clocked these CFast cards at up to 200MB/sec read speeds. With a Super Talent CFast storage card installed, there will be no waiting time for the camera to catch up, and it will be much swifter to view pictures on a camera or to copy them to computer.

Measuring 36.4 x 42.8 x 3.3mm for Type I CFast storage cards and 36.4 x 42.8 x 5.0mm for Type II, the same physical dimensions as the CompactFlash card, the CFast Storage Card has a single-chip controller and flash memory module. The SATA interface consists of a 7-pin signal connector and a 17-pin power and control connector. The card operates at 3.3V.

Super Talent is offering five different CFast storage cards, 8GB and 16GB based on SLC (Single Level Cell) flash and 8GB, 16GB and 32GB based on MLC (Multi Level Cell) flash. The first generation of CFast storage cards supports transfer speeds up to 200MB/s.

Source: SuperTalent.

Sans Digital is delivering a dual Compact Flash design that might rival some solid state drives at half the cost and with significant benefits. What Sans Digital has come up with is putting two Compact Flash cards into a 2.5″ enclosure to make it look and feel like a SSD drive. Using two 16GB cards and some RAID configuration the dual flash memory becomes a 32GB hard drive. Although this isn’t the biggest drive size, it does rival entry level SSD storage devices.

So here’s the kicker; putting two high performance Sandisk Extreme III Compact Flash cards together would only cost a user about $360. Compare that cost outlay with a $860 SSD drive [of about the same storage size] and you’ve got yourself a clear winner on what direction to take.

“Unlike existing RAID units that employs hard drives for storage space, the CompactSTOR CS1T utilizes pocket-sized lightweight Compact Flash cards as storage memory for data safekeeping. Designed with the same size and connectors as a 2.5” SATA hard drive, the CS1T is compatible with the hard drive slot of laptops, industrial PCs (IPC), small form factor computers, and 2.5” hard drive enclosures.”

In addition, the Compact Flash configuration has lower power consumption and less noise and heat output. The only issue we see is the performance difference between the two. The entry level SSD storage units average [according to spec] about 90Mbytes/s write whereby the Sans Digital solution is about a 3rd less at 30Mbytes/s write speed.

The Sans Digital product is called the CompactSTOR and retails for about $45 for the dual bay Compact Flash base and enclosure, memory, of course, is sold seperately.

Transcend continues their effort into the embedded systems applications with their most recent announcement of the SATA Flash Module. The high-speed SATA flash modules specifically designed for use in thin clients, blade servers, ultra-compact sub-notebooks and space-limited industrial installations allows Transcend to offer up their lightweight and compact SATA flash memory modules.

With solid-state flash memory being non-volatile and more robust than spinning hard disk solutions, it makes the SATA flash module ideal for harsher environments with more demanding applications, such as embedded systems, medial instruments, factory automation equipment, network infrastructure and other industrial equipment.

What I like most about flash memory modules is the low power consumption, shock and vibration resistance, longer data retention durability and instant access time (no spin up or seek times we traditionally see in HHDs).

Transcend’s SATA flash modules are offered in 1GB and 2GB capacities, in both vertical and horizontal versions to satisfy industrial application requirements.

Here is an out-of-the-box solution for turning those high capacity Compact Flash memory cards into SATA hard drives. The CF to SATA hard drive adapter is ideal for using CF as a bootable device containing OS or application data.

The adapter is compatible with Compact Flash type I and II and will provide a full functioning SATA interface.

The adapter card is also fully compatible with Windows XP, Vista and Linux - in case the application is something other than embedded.

The CF to SATA adapter is $25 without power supply and $35 with power supply so a reasonable price for what you get. (more…)

With the recent announcement from The CompactFlash Association (CFA) to develop an SATA interface for CF memory is another positive sign that solid state memory for laptops and computers will become the normal.

Despite the fact of Mr. Shigeto, chairman of the CFA board, indicates this move is to further solidify CompactFlash memory as the primary memory storage for non-consumer, embedded and single board products, I think the writing is on the wall for gaining a larger market share of the PC market.

So what is the advantage of SATA interface? Speed. Currently the PATA specification is about 133MB/second and having SATA interface will greatly increase that speed(althogh no target speed was given - just “faster”).

With CompactFlash card slots are in over 360 digital cameras, over 165 handheld/palm-size PCs and over 705 other electronic platforms including embedded systems, single board computers, data recorders, heart monitors, defibrillators, etc. the faster transfer speed will ensure performance to the user with out a bottle-neck of memory.

Press Release: SATA Interface to Compact Flash