Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI) has presented a the ONFI 3.0 standard for NAND memory circuits. ONFI 3.0 will use a new nonvolatile DDR2 interface (NV-DDR2) that promises speeds up to 400 megabyte per second, which is twice as high as current NAND interfaces.
Through a faster interface the NAND controller in e.g. SSDs can offer higher transfer speeds with fewer active memory channels. This would boost performance in smaller units with limited capacity and fewer memory chips, but also larger drives of course.
SandForce is the only controller maker that isn’t noticeably affected by the limited bandwidth of the NANDinterface, while e.g. Marvell’s popular SATA 6.0 Gbps controller sees a drop in write speed as soon as the memory chips are reduced. This becomes an even more critical when the manufacturing process shrinks and the chip density increases.
With fewer memory chips higher individual bandwidth is required
The ONFI group have already gained support from several heavy player where people at Micron, Intel and SandForce have taken a shine to ONFI 3.0.
“The new ONFI 3.0 technology supporting interface transfer rates of up to 400MB/s is a key NAND capability to support future SSD design” Knut Grimsrud, Intel storage.
The first SSDs with the new ONFI 3.0 interface is expected to appear next year.
