Does a SCM Controller Need a Translation Table?

Gary Hilson, EETimes
May 11, 2019

TORONTO – A startup has an idea for a persistent memory controller it believes will help get the most of performance from a storage class memory (SCM) by doing away with translation tables.

Wolley’s patented table-less architecture was developed with SCMs in mind, said president and co-founder Bernard Shung, in telephone interview with EE Times. It offers the potential of faster performance by using fewer states than existing controllers by removing the need for a flash translation layer (FTL) address table. The technology also eliminates the need for a large backup energy cap, he said, and through its design, fundamentally resolves the difficult issue of synchronization.

Shung said that Wolley’s technology reflects the company’s conviction that an SCM requires a fundamentally different controller, one that is table-less. With speeds approaching that of DRAM and the capacity and non-volatility of NAND, an SCM has been a “dream device” for decades. Added Shung, “It wasn’t until Intel/Micron announced 3D Xpoint in 2015 that people started to pay serious attention to it.”

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