IP -Maker to release NVMe PCIe Gen 3 reference design

For For custom customcustomcustom design of high performance and low power storage devices

July 11, 2016, Aix en Provence, France: IP-Maker, the French startup specialized in high performance storage technologies, released its new NVMe Express (NVMe) reference design, using a PCIe Gen3 interface. It is based on the low latency hardware NVMe engine designed by IP-Maker.

Designing an enterprise grade NVMe SSD

What is the definition of an enterprise grade SSD: high reliability or high performance? Both. Reliability is one of the most important criteria for an enterprise storage system. Losing data is not allowed. The main potential issues are the memory corruption, a controller failure and unstable performances which may lead in an availability issue. The expected reliability from the IT manager is defined with a 99.999% availability. The other important criteria for an enterprise SSD is the performance (latency and IOPS). For big data analytics, data base or virtualization, the return on investment of the IT capex depends on the performances.

This article describes how a full hardware NVMe architecture can be used to design a NVMe PCIe SSD with an enterprise grade, providing 10µs latency range and five nines quality of service.

Software Define Storage with a Full Hardware NVM Express Solution

A data center infrastructure becomes more and more complex, where each user needs a different configuration regarding the storage, computing and networking requirements. When a server configuration has resources limitations, adding servers in order to increase the computing and/or storage capacities is not efficient in term of performances, cost and power consumption. The data centric architecture is much more efficient, based on a pool of storage elements, and computing elements. This disaggregated architecture allows scaling dynamically according to user requirements. This is feasible only with low latency interfaces. This paper describes how a full hardware NVMe implementation can answer the low latency requirements of a software defines storage (SDS) infrastructure.

IP-Maker to introduce PCIe Gen3 capable NVMe controller IP

Ideal solution for software defined storage

August 12^th, 2015, Flash memory Summit, Santa-Clara, CA – IP-Maker, the Aix-en-Provence (France) based startup, introduces its new version of NVMe controller IP. PCIe Gen3 capable, this full hardware architecture UNH-IOL compliant, will reduce dramatically the latency of NVMe storage systems.

IP-Maker’s NVMe IP to pass the compliance test at the UNH-IOL

Leveraging low latency storage interface for software defined infrastructure

May 22^nd, 2015, Aix en Provence, France – IP-Maker, the leading company in NVMe (NVM Express) technology has successfully passed de compliance test at the UNH-IOL(University of New Hampshire, InterOperability Lab). The unique full hardware architecture is now part of the official integrator list: https://www.iol.unh.edu/registry/nvme

The all-flash data center: a reality?

Flash memory has been introduced in data centers few years ago through the use of SAS and SATA Solid-State Drives (SSD). This technology allows very fast read and write IOs compared to spinning disks (HDD). It was first used for applications requiring high performance storage capabilities, as a top tier level only due to the higher cost in term of dollars per gigabyte compared to hard-disk drives. By the way, the total cost of ownership (TCO) of flash-based servers as dramatically decreased, therefore allowing the use of flash-based products for lower tier storage applications. This is thanks to a lower $/GB, software optimization allowing advanced compression algorithms, power consumption reduction, and the effort on higher density form factors. That leads to a huge market opportunity for new flash-based applications. Flash-based products will be designed through a standard server architecture and commercial SSDs, or through a custom all-flash array architecture. In this paper, both design strategies will be described and how the designers will be available to leverage the flash capabilities.

Conquering the challenges of PCIe with NVMe in order to deliver
highly competitive Enterprise PCIe SSD

Executive Summary: To help leading storage companies address the booming demand of PCI SSD (Solid State Drive), PLDA enhances the end-to-end data integrity functionality of its PCIe soft IP products and showcases a NVMe demo on its hardware.

How many kIOPS on a NVMe PCIe Gen2 x4 device?
(Jérôme Gaysse, IP-Maker, published on Chipestimate.com on Sept 17, 2013)

The number of IO per second (IOPS) is certainly the most important parameter that characterizes the performance of a storage device. The NVM Express (NVMe) specification has been introduced in order to leverage the performances of PCI Express Solid-State Drives (PCIe SSDs). The first part of this Tech Talk explains the maximum theoretical performance reachable on such devices. In the second part, a NVMe hardware implementation is described and shows how a multi-channel DMA architecture is able to provide performances very close to the theory.

PLDA and IP-Maker enable high performance storage devices with integrated PCIe 3.0 controller

with NVM Express IP Core.

SAN JOSE, USA - AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France (May 31, 2013) — PLDA, the industry leader in PCI Express® and interface IP solutions and IP-Maker today announced a joint solution integrating PLDA’s XpressRICH3 PCIe 3.0 with IP-Maker’s NVM Express (NVMe) IP cores. Cloud computing, video broadcast and high performance computing applications require high bandwith and low latency storage devices such as PCIe SSDs, enabled by the combination of speed and performance provided by PCIe 3.0 and NVMe protocol.

The integration of the robust PLDA XpressRICH3 PCIe 3.0 controller for ASIC and the full hardware optimized NVMe IP core from IP-Maker delivers best-in-class performance, featuring ultra-low latency and very high data transfer rates. This integrated PCIe with NVMe available for both ASIC designs and FPGA prototyping of ASIC designs will help customers accelerate their system level development and validation, and reduce the risk. It also offloads CPU and OS, resulting in a better server power footprint.

Leveraging PCIe SSD performance with a full hardware NVMe

With the recent introduction of the NVM Express (NVMe) specification, an important milestone has been reached in the race to higher performance PCIe SSDs. NVMe technology will provide the best solution for a direct access between the PCIe bus and NandFlash memories. The second milestone is the way to implement NVM Express. This Tech Talk will cover different solutions and the impact on the performances (latency and throughput).
High Performance

IP-Maker to exhibit at Electronica 2012
Hall A, Booth 547/4

Smart and simplified NandFlash controller solutions for embedded systems

November 5, 2012, Aix en Provence, France – IP-Maker is leveraging NandFlash support in a wide range of applications from embedded systems to enterprise. IP-Maker had a great success for enterprise SSDs with its NVM Express IP core at Flash Memory Summit, which took place in Santa Clara, on August 22/23. The next step is to demonstrate NandFlash capabilities at Electronica, Munich, from November 13 to 16, hall A6 booth 547/4.

Teledyne Lecroy and IP-Maker to showcase
NVM Express functionalities at Flash Memory Summit

FPGA platform and analyzer for a full NVM Express development environment August 20, 2012, Aix en Provence, France – IP-Maker and Teledyne Lecroy will showcase a NVM Express (NVMe) demonstration platform at the most important conference & tradeshow for the solid-state storage market place, Flash Memory Summit, Santa Clara, August 22&23. It is based on the integration of the IP-Maker NVM Express IP core in a FPGA, and demonstrated with the Teledyne Lecroy Summit T3-8 analyzer showing its NVMe capabilities.

IP-Maker to deliver the first IP core compliant to the NVM Express specification

NVMe IP core designed by IP-Maker brings drastic performance increase
and driver standardization to PCIe SSDs

January 6, 2012, Aix en Provence, France – IP-Maker announces the availability of the first IP core compliant to the NVM Express specification. This is a very important step for the Solid-State Drive (SSD) market where the actual technology suffers from a throughput bottleneck. The IP-Maker NVMe IP core is the only architecture able to sustain growing performance demand for PCIe SSD applications, enabled by non-volatile memory technology.