New Linux MTD driver support for the M-Systems Millennium Plus family of DiskOnChip flash devices

SnapGear Inc., a leader in open source Embedded Linux development, has announced the first MTD (Memory Technology Device subsystem) Linux driver support for the M-Systems Millennium Plus family of DiskOnChip flash devices. The driver support now makes it possible for Linux developers to take advantage of M-Systems' widely deployed DiskOnChip technology.

Specifically, the achievement brings driver support for M-Systems INFTL (Inverse NAND Flash Translation Layer). DiskOnChip offers flash code and data storage ranging from 8MB up to 1GB in size, making flash memory appear as a standard hard disk, and provide safe flash memory writes.

The work required was complex, requiring several months of experienced developer time. The current MTD tools had to be modified and extended to format and work with INFTL and DiskOnChip Millennium Plus. A tool was also created to program IPL (Initial Program Loader) into DiskOnChip, allowing DiskOnChip to serve as both a flash drive and a boot ROM replacement, something that was impossible with raw NAND flash. Prior to this work there was no open source support for the DiskOnChip and INFTL combination.

Noam Kedem, vice president of business development for M-Systems, said: "In smartphones and PDAs, routers and switches, home networking gateways and set top boxes, thin clients and many other applications in which DiskOnChip is a widely deployed solution, there is a growing adoption of Linux. Both our existing and potential customers stand to immediately benefit from this technology edge. Our award-winning DiskOnChip products now offer an even greater value at no extra cost. We expect to announce new design wins incorporating Linux and SnapGear Inc. solutions in 2003."

The drivers will be released in the future as open source under the GPL.

For more information about M-Systems please visit www.m-sys.com

See also the related SnapGear^® Technical Bulletin #13 Using Flash Memory with uClinux

Further information on SnapGear OEM Solutions

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