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Zeus SSD Functional Blocks Functional Description
Zeus Ultra DMA Solid State Drives 17
2.1.2 SSD Control Block
The Zeus SSD’s control block comprises three integrated components:
• SimpleTech Zeus SSD controller
• RISC Microcontroller
• NAND SLC flash memory
SimpleTech’s Zeus FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) controller is the heart of the
Zeus SSD. The Zeus controller provides the drive’s ATA interface to the host, and the
IDE interface to the drive’s local flash memory. The Zeus controller’s integrated DMA
controller interfaces with system memory to facilitate data transfer between the host and
the SSD’s local flash memory.
An integrated microcontroller is responsible for initiating and controlling all activity within
the Zeus ATA controller. The microcontroller features more than 1Mbit of on-chip SRAM
and a wide range of peripheral functions, with 8Mbits of flash memory into a single
compact 120-ball BGA package, providing a powerful and flexible solution for the SSD’s
embedded control applications. The SSD’s embedded microcontroller is a high-
performance processor with a high-density instruction set and very low power
consumption. In addition, a large number of internally banked registers provide very fast
exception handling—making it ideal for the real-time application control requirements of
the SSD. The 8-level priority-vectored interrupt controller, together with the Peripheral
Data Controller, significantly enhance the SSD’s real-time performance.
The SSD’s flash memory controller architecture requires only minimal external
component support. The SSD’s flash controller works with flash memory devices from
Samsung
®
and Toshiba
®
, as well as a number of compatible flash memory devices from
other manufacturers.
Features of the drive’s flash memory controller include:
• Built-in 3.3V voltage regulator for flash memory supply
• Data transfer rates up to 60 MB/sec (controller to flash memory)
• True-IDE mode support
• Embedded ECC unit
• Wear-leveling and bad-block mapping software