14 DAY TRIAL // Micron Technology has recently acquired Tidal Systems, a new company that develops controllers for SSDs. This acquisition will allow Micron to internally build SSDs and not have to rely on outsourced SSDs and SoCs.
Being part of a trend that sees MediaTek push as well for acquiring SSD controller manufacturers, Micron also wants to enter the SSD controller business by buying Tidal Systems, a move that really pushes the company forward in developing its own controllers for data center SSDs.
This sort of investment is made with a keen eye on the future since the SSD business will grow tremendously in the following years. As HDDs start to show their age, SSDs currently stand as holding the record for the largest disk drive on the planet with Samsung's 16TB V-NAND PM1633a.
Founded just a year ago, Tidal System was probably one of the most promising small businesses of SSD manufacturing, since it managed to bring the cream of SSD controller engineer teams of companies like SandForce, LSI and Skyera. Together they managed to build controllers for NAND flash controllers, PCIe/NVMe and another for Serial ATA-6Gb/s SSDs.
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According to Tom's Hardware, one of the key features of Tidal's controllers was the development of Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) technology, which it seems to be one of the best technologies to correct retention errors occurred in modern NAND flash drives. Since process technologies force the drives to get smaller and thinner with more bits per cell, retention errors appear more often so advanced error correction technologies must be developed in order to preserve reliability and maintain the endurance of products.
The guys from Tidal might as well start working on the cutting-edge 3D XPoint technology Micron is currently working with Intel, and since the Tidal engineers are familiar with developing NAND drives, they might have a place in building system stability in the new NVMe technology which Micron is currently researching to beat Samsung and Toshiba's 3D NAND drives.