Evatronix Introduces the World’s Fastest SD/SDIO/MMC Host Controller.

Speed of nearly 1 Gbps with 2 TB of storage enables new applications and threatens SSD drives.

Bielsko-Biala/Poland, September 23rd, 2009 - The silicon intellectual property (IP) provider, Evatronix SA, today announced its SDIO-HOST controller has been updated to meet the latest specifications and now supports SD 3.0, SDIO 2.0 and MMC/eMMC 4.4 standards. These specifications allow support of SDXC cards, which go beyond the 32 GB limit of SDHC products and sets the capacity bar at 2 TB of data.

The latest release of the controller introduces support for the UHS-I interface, which increases the Single Data Rate clock by 4 times to 208 MHz setting the maximum operating frequency at nearly 1 Gigabit of data per second. The UHS-I also reduces the overall power consumption by applying lower signaling voltage level to the latest Ultra High Speed cards.

Simultaneously, the controller allows the same very high transfer rates to be achieved with MMC cards by supporting the Dual Data Rate (DDR) speed mode, which works at 54 MHz on an 8-bit bus width.

“This upgrade to the SDIO-HOST controller broadens the scope of its possible applications and allows our IP to be implemented in products require the highest data rate transfer values, like HD video camcorders,“ said Michal Barbuletis, the SDIO Product Manager at Evatronix. “Leveraging the speed of the SDIO-HOST controller and the high capacity of the latest SDXC cards our customers can now create a more compact alternative to latest generation of mass storage devices, for example SSD hard drives.“

Availability and customization options

The updated SDIO-HOST IP core is available now for implementation in any FPGA or ASIC technology. The IP core is delivered as an RTL source code with a set of scripts and macros for simulation/synthesis support or as an FPGA netlist targeted to the latest programmable devices. The SDIO-HOST controller IP is complemented by a dedicated software driver that fully supports all SD/SDIO/MMC cards available on the market.