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Silicon Systems, Inc. 14351 Myford Road Tustin, California, USA
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SILICON SYSTEMS FOURTH GENERATION PR4ML ICs PROVIDE DISK DRIVE DESIGNERS 50% HIGHER DATA RATES On-board thermal asperity detection eliminates head-to-disk contact errors and resultant friction heating offsets. Tustin, California, September 3, 1996 -- Silicon Systems now offers designers of high performance disk drives two new advanced PR4ML read channels with performance specified at either 200 or 240 Mbit/s. Both are pin compatible upgrades to the company's successful 125 and 140 Mbit/s 32P4910 and 32P4915 PR4ML channels -- the most widely used devices of their kind on the market. The two new devices use proprietary mixed signal technology and are manufactured in the company's 0.8-µ BiCMOS process. "Our new 32P4935 and 32P4937 devices are the fastest read channels available on the market today and will allow designers to continue to increase performance levels using these pin-for-pin compatible devices," said Dave Gruetter, read channel product planning and development manager at SSi. "Unlike other PRML implementations on the market, our solution utilizes a proprietary, completely analog method for Viterbi detection which eliminates requirements for an analog-to-digital converter and extensive digital signal processing to convert the analog read channel signal to a valid digital data stream. As a result, these devices operate some 50 percent faster than all-digital, CMOS designs, and, power consumption remains unchanged," he said. The 32P4935 and 32P4937 are the fourth generation of mixed signal PRML ICs designed and manufactured by the company and a continuation of the company's 32P491X family of devices. For the first time both new devices include a thermal asperity detection and correction feature which reduces errors caused by head-to-disk contact and resultant friction heating offsets in the MR head output. This innovative subsystem instantly identifies a thermal offset condition in the read channel signal, and automatically compensates for the offset to begin recovering valid data quickly. It also flags the potentially bad bytes in the data stream for correction in the ECC section of the controller. "With the flying height of MR heads approaching the flatness specification of the disk, thermal asperity can be a major design challenge in advanced disk drives utilizing MR heads," he noted. "These new PR4ML channels solve this problem on-the-fly, without requiring processing overhead or other external subsystems." "Once again, evaluation tests in our laboratory have demonstrated data rates far beyond our specifications," Gruetter said. "During these tests, our silicon decoded valid data at well above 300 Mbit/s. The 4937 will allow our 491X family customers to continue development testing of the magnetics for future generations using today's existing read channel products. This should continue to be a real time-to-market advantage for them well into the future," he stated. "The new 32P4935 and 32P4937 are prime examples of our commitment to employ advanced analog signal processing techniques to minimize the chip size and power consumption of advanced mixed-signal PRML channels," said Russ Garcia, vice president marketing of Silicon Systems Storage Products. "To date we have shipped nearly 30 million PRML devices to disk drive manufacturers around the world, and by the end of 1996 expect to have shipped approximately 60 million units. This is by far the leadership position in the marketplace." Samples of the 32P4935 and the 32P4937 are priced at $15.00 and $16.00 (Quantity=1000) respectively. Both are shipped in 100-lead TQFP packages and are available off the shelf. Production quantities are slated for September 1996. Silicon Systems, Inc., a subsidiary of Texas Instruments Incorporated, is a leading supplier of advanced, mixed-signal ICs for application in hard disk drives and removable storage systems. SSi's design innovations in read channel products, including the PRML and traditional peak-detect designs, controllers, and removable storage products has positioned the company as the leader in high-performance, low-power, system-level solutions for the electronic data storage market. |
