29 July 2008

Velocity LPNV-RAM Will Aid Mobile Apps Development On ARM

Numonyx B.V. has debuted its Velocity LPNV-RAM product family –fast low-power, double-data-rate (LPDDR) non-volatile memory – which will offer benefits to developers working on mobile applications around the ARM platform.

The Velocity LPNV-RAM product family will help mobile phones and other consumer electronics manufacturers with better memory performance at lower costs than current solutions, Numonyx said. The devices deliver two to three times faster read bandwidth performance improvement over traditional NOR Flash memory, while providing a cost saving alternative to platforms using high DRAM content. The Numonyx Velocity LP NV-RAM offering also provides a seamless architectural path to the company’s upcoming phase change memory (PCM) products.

In developing the Numonyx Velocity LP NV-RAM family, the company actively engaged the ecosystem and customers to enable LPDDR NV-RAM solutions to hit the market in 2009. "The LPDDR-NVM interface offers significant benefits to developers implementing mobile applications around the ARM architecture," said Keith Clarke, vice president operations and Fabric IP, Processor Division, ARM. "We collaborated closely with Numonyx to extend the AMBA 3 AXI-based ARM PrimeCell PL340 dynamic memory controller to work with the Numonyx Velocity LP NV-RAM solution and it has already been successfully deployed to our lead partners.”

Digital images, videos, games and other applications continue to put significant memory demands on wireless phones. To meet that demand, many mobile phone developers utilize combinations of non-volatile memory like NOR and NAND with costly RAM memory technologies. Each of these memory types require different hardware and software interfaces and often force designers to make trade-offs between memory system performance and supporting more interfaces which can increase system cost, Numonyx explained.

Numonyx Velocity LP NV-RAM combines the attributes of the execution memories in the system onto one, widely accepted LPDDR interface – helping to simplify system architecture, increase speeds and reduce costs. Because this non-volatile memory is also executable, designers can enable digital content to be read at RAM speeds and lower the memory system cost by reducing the requirements for LP RAM in the system. Support for the new interface also helps system architects to scale their memory systems to support more phones, from low-end to high-end, with the same architecture, Numonyx said.

The Numonyx Velocity LP NV-RAM family is compliant with the JEDEC Low Power Double Date Rate (LPDDR) NVM Standard announced in November 2007. Upon ratification, Numonyx said it will continue to work with the industry to support future generations of interface standards with their products.