4Q2013: Silicon Motion 3267 new USB 3.0 controller chip to boost up flash drives in a 50%.

4Q2013: Silicon Motion 3267 new USB 3.0 controller chip to boost up flash drives in a 50%.

 Silicon Motion Technology last week announced it has begun shipping USB drive manufacturers samples of a new USB 3.0 controller chip for flash drives that could boost their performance by up to 50 percent.

The company said the new SM3267 integrated controller is expected to deliver up to 160 megabyte-per-second read times and 60 megabyte-per-second write speeds through a single channel; that would be a 30 percent to 50 percent performance improvement over today's USB 3.0 flash drive technology.

Even though the USB 3.0 specification has the capability to support 4.8Gbps throughput speeds, the speed of a USB 3.0-enabled flash drive is dictated by the speed of the accessing flash devices in the drive. Today, most consumer-USB 3.0 flash drives support about 100MB/s read speeds.

"We are pleased to announce that SM3267 has received design-ins from most of our current USB controller customers, including many top-tier OEMs, and we expect SM3267-based USB 3.0 flash drives will be commercially available starting in the fourth quarter of 2013," Wallace Kou, CEO of Silicon Motion, said in a statement.

The new integrated chip will also be able to run at lower voltages, from 5 volts to 1.2 volts, enabling a 25 percent to 30 percent lower USB flash drive device temperature compared with other USB 3.0 flash controller products in the market, Silicon Motion said.

The new IC will support the vast majority of NAND flash technology, including new triple-level cell (TLC), multilevel cell (MLC), high speed Toggle, and ONFI DDR NAND manufactured by Samsung, Toshiba, SanDisk, SK Hynix, Micron and Intel.

The new chip has already passed both USB-IF compliance testing and WHCK (Windows Hardware Certification Kit) tests for Windows 7 and Windows 8.

The new IC is available in a Chip-on-Board (COB) and in a 48-pin QFN green package.

PCWorld.

Press Release:

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (“Silicon Motion” or the “Company”), a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid state storage devices, today announced that it has begun sampling its new, single-channel, ultra high performance and cost-effective controller solution for USB 3.0 flash drives, the SM3267.  By integrating an embedded crystal oscillator and all power ICs, SM3267 reduces the customers’ overall system cost.  In addition, SM3267 delivers an industry-leading data transfer rate of up to 160MB/s read, a 30% to 50% improvement from most single-channel USB 3.0 flash drive controllers in the market today.

“We are very excited to introduce SM3267, our first crystal-less USB 3.0 solution with integrated power ICs,” said Wallace Kou, President and CEO of Silicon Motion.  “SM3267 offers superior performance with competitive cost when compared to other USB 3.0 controllers in the market, and we believe our solution will help accelerate the market in transitioning from legacy USB 2.0 flash drives to the latest generation USB 3.0 drives. This is another example of Silicon Motion leading the market in bringing new, advanced technology to the mainstream market. We are pleased to announce that SM3267 has received design-ins from most of our current USB controller customers, including many top-tier OEMs, and we expect SM3267-based USB 3.0 flash drives will be commercially available starting in the fourth quarter of 2013.”

Silicon Motion’s SM3267 provides an ultra-high performance, cost-effective USB 3.0 controller with industry leading capabilities and technologies including:

• High-speed data transfer rates of up to 160MB/s read and 60MB/s write
• Integrated crystal and power ICs, including a 5V to 3.3V LDO and a 5V to 1.2V DC-DC, allows for 25-30% lower USB flash drive device temperature compares with other USB3.0 flash controller products in the market.
• Lower total BOM costs by up to 15 to 20% by eliminating the crystal oscillator and power ICs
• Supports the vast majority of NAND flash, including 2y/1x/1y nm TLC, MLC, high speed Toggle, and ONFI DDR NAND manufactured by Samsung, Toshiba, SanDisk, SK Hynix, Micron and Intel
• Passed both USB-IF compliance testing and WHCK (Windows Hardware Certification Kit) tests for Windows 7 and Windows 8
• Available in Chip-on-Board (COB) and in a 48-pin QFN green package with manufacturing-ready turnkey solutions designed to fit mainstream USB 2.0 flash drive modules.

About Silicon Motion:

Silicon Motion is a fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops and markets high performance, low-power semiconductor solutions for the multimedia consumer electronics market. We have two major product lines, mobile storage and mobile communications. Our mobile storage business is composed of microcontrollers used in NAND flash memory storage products such as flash memory cards, USB flash drives, SSDs, and embedded flash applications. Our mobile communications business is composed primarily of handset transceivers and mobile TV IC solutions. For more information, please visit www.siliconmotion.com.

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