LSI Second-gen 40nm LDPC Read Channel for HDDs now in Volume Production

LSI Corp. is now shipping in volume the TrueStore RC9700 read channel IP integrated into system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs for the hard disk drive (HDD) market. The TrueStore RC9700 is a second-generation 40nm read channel featuring a low-density parity check (LDPC) iterative decoding architecture. First available in silicon in November 2010, the RC9700 is shipping in production volumes with its initial silicon, accelerating time-to-market for next-generation, higher-capacity HDDs.

"The RC9700 provides our customers with higher HDD yields, lower power consumption and a time-to-market advantage in meeting the next HDD areal density point," said Phil Brace, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Storage Peripherals Division, LSI. "LSI launched the industry's first 40nm read channel with LDPC iterative decoding last year, and with our second-generation product ramping to production in just over six months after initial samples, we continue to lead the industry transitions to 40nm LDPC architectures."

The RC9700 is designed to support notebook, desktop and enterprise HDD market segments. The product utilizes LDPC iterative decoding technology to enable HDD OEMs to achieve high yields at areal densities of 500GB per disk platter for 2.5-inch drives – a new capacity sweet spot in the industry – and 1TB per disk platter for 3.5-inch drives.

The RC9700 is the latest addition to the LSI TrueStore family of ICs for hard disk, tape and solid-state drive components, including highly integrated high-performance storage SoCs, read channels, preamplifiers, serial PHYs and hard disk drive controller IP. Together with TrueStore preamplifiers and serial PHYs, the RC9700 creates a complete data path solution for HDD manufacturers.

LSI