Industrial eMMC EM-20 Embedded Multimedia Card by Swissbit

Swissbit AG presents its latest technology for the industrial market: the embedded Multimedia card EM-20.

The eMMC combines an industrial controller with MLC flash in a BGA153 package making it possible to solder the memory directly onto the printed circuit board of the target application.

With capacities from 8 to 64GB, all typical applications are covered. EM-20 replaces thus far commonly used NAND memory chips, which depend on elaborate OS resources. Thanks to its integrated controller, flash management functionality and standardized interface, EM-20 can be designed-in to applications and offers a variety of features. The firmware is designed for use as a streamlined and energy-saving boot medium for medical devices, POS/POI terminals or demanding industrial embedded computing applications. As a further distinctive feature, EM-20 can be optionally operated in reliable/pseudo-SLC mode (pSLC).

pSLC (pseudo Single Level Cell) stores only one bit per MLC cell. For certain applications, the pSLC mode offers advantages: it is faster than the standard use of MLC flash technology and at the same time it increases the possible P/E cycles (program/erase cycles) from 3,000 to 20,000. Under the same conditions, the endurance of the data carriers increases by a factor of 6.7. The user can configure and choose between pSLC or MLC mode, even separately for different partitions if required.

Industrial temperature range
EM-20 memory cards are based on JEDEC 5.0 – the de facto standard for industrial eMMCs. They are available with capacities of 8, 16, 32, or 64GB and offer firmware features such as page-based flash management, wear levelling, read disturb management, data care management and secure data erasure. The Replay Protected Memory Block (RPMB), a one-time writable partition, makes key-storage for Trusted Execution Environments possible. With data-refresh-functionalities and an industrial operating temperature range from -40°C to +85°C, the data carrier is designed for long-term operation under harsh conditions. Company’s eMMC offers performance with up to 270MB/s for reading and 160MB/s for writing.