OCZ Technology has told analysts that the third generation Barefoot controller is being manufactured by TSMC right now. The controller has a custom processor core called Aragon that will give SSD units breathtaking performance.
Barefoot 3 is made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company at 65 nm and the heart of the SSD controller is a 32-bit processor called Aragon that operates at 400 megahertz. Aragon will be the first processor developed and optimized for SSD units and supports a SSD-specific instruction set. As a result of OCZ’s own circuit development after the acquisition of Indilinx this is the first time the Barefoot family builds on a processor circuit from within the company.
According to OCZ VP Ryan Petersen the new SSD controller will open new doors for the company and the SSD market when it comes to performance.
“Initial specifications indicate that Barefoot 3 will support a significant performance increase over our current products. […]When implemented in SSD controller, this gives the core a much higher performance than when using an off-the-shelf embedded safety field. And this design opens a world of new possibilities for game changing SSD solutions as it supports unprecedented levels of processing power,” – Ryan Petersen told analysts
OCZ is planning to distribute SSD prototypes with the new Barefoot 3 controller between August and September. The first Barefoot 3 SSD units will appear on the market during Q1 2013.
OCZ Barefoot 2, based on a Marvell chip, is the heart of the Vertex 4 series
Source: SeekingAlpha.com
