3 ms·
Think it's closely related to their Netezza line; a 'Big Data' storeage solution that also features a FCPA-centered design for the storage/T-SQL engine.
by NKCSS 10y ago
Think it's closely related to their Netezza line; a 'Big Data' storeage solution that also features a FCPA-centered design for the storage/T-SQL engine.
- kev009 10y agoI don't. I think they are using an FPGA because it is convenient and they are willing to throw away some of the margins on their product for ease of implementation. That particular FPGA has a PCIe hard IP, and they probably implement the NAND read/write/balancing using its LUTs and interface using its digital I/O. A consumer SSD (or really any product) might start off life like this, and then tape out to an ASIC before release if it is going to ship in any significant volume. The ASIC will have drastically lower power and, once sufficient volume hits, much higher margins. I don't buy the programmable argument either, you can implement programmable cores (this is what basically any high feature NIC is like Chelsio, SolarFlare, etc) while still baking in the PCIe, NAND interfaces, offloads like CRC/erasure coding. Those FPGAs each cost several hundred dollars. Imagine if each PCI device in your computer (sound, network, video) had a full Xeon on board. Not entirely dissimilar.
- duskwuff 10y ago> Those FPGAs each cost several hundred dollars. Several hundred? Try several THOUSAND. Here's the part that's seen in the photos: http://www.digikey.com/short/3pmq5w http://www.digikey.com/short/3pmq5w A fully loaded FlashSystem has around $100,000 of FPGA silicon in it (12 modules x 4 FPGAs/module x ~$2000/FPGA).