Palm OS to get Gigabyte NAND Flash Support

Posted By: Ryan Tuesday, March 15, 2005 11:30:31 AM

Samsung announced that it has reached agreement with PalmSource to work together to port Samsung NAND Flash software into the Palm OS Cobalt and future releases of the Palm operating system. Also, M-Systems announced plans to collaborate with PalmSource to provide Palm OS support for its 2 gigabyte MLC NAND-based DiskOnChip H series storage solution.

The planned solutions are intended to enable ultra-fast storage of huge multimedia files while reducing the processing time of next-generation Palm Powered phones.

Samsung NAND
Over the next several months, Samsung and PalmSource will look to incorporate Samsung’s XSR Flash software into Palm OS Cobalt and future versions of the Palm operating system, enabling Palm Powered phones to support the widest range of Samsung Flash devices ranging in density from 512Mb – 8Gb for NAND and 256Mb – 4Gb for Samsung OneNAND™. The combination of Samsung’s XSR Flash software, a 90 nanometer OneNAND device and Palm OS would minimize the time it takes to power-on a wireless device, while enabling sub 0.5 shot-to-shot delay with camera resolutions up to six megapixels.

“The migration from bandwidth-limited NOR Flash memory to much more robust, multimedia-friendly NAND Flash is moving at a torrid pace as handset manufacturers and wireless carriers are scrambling to address the soaring demand for increased functionality and media-rich services in their products,” said Ivan Greenberg, Director, Strategic and Technical Marketing, Samsung Semiconductor.

M-Systems DiskOnChip
As a partner in the Palm OS Ready program, M-Systems offers Palm OS licensees flash-based memory storage solutions designed to speed time-to-market and lower device costs of Palm Powered smart mobile devices. M-Systems' H-Series flash disk products, slated this year to range in size up to 2 gigabytes, are multi-level cell (MLC) NAND-based storage solutions designed specifically for music and video handsets.

Several Palm Powered devices leverage M-Systems' advanced storage technology including the Xplore M28 smartphone from GSPDA, the Treo 650 smartphone and Tungsten T5 handheld from palmOne, and the QDA 700 smartphone from Qool Labs. DiskOnChip is the first NAND solution used in Palm Powered devices available on the market today.

M-Systems plans to offer TrueFFS software support for DiskOnChip H-series products for existing and future release of the Palm operating system. TrueFFS, M-Systems' patented flash management software, provides the operating system ( OS ) with full block device ( hard drive ) functionality so that the DiskOnChip flash disk appears to the OS and file system as a standard disk drive. At the same time, it transparently provides full flash media management.

"PalmSource's plans to integrate support for our newest, high capacity products validates DiskOnChip's maturity and cost advantages over alternatives and provides users of Palm Powered smart mobile devices with a fast track to proven and cost-effective multiple-gigabyte capacities, which are necessary in multimedia devices today," said David Tolub, general manager of M-Systems mobile division.

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Cobal is comming!

RhinoSteve @ 3/15/2005 4:54:51 PM #

Cobalt is not dead, it is fashable and late. Thus, it will get even more attention and OS 5 can be milked more.

RE: Cobal is comming!

LiveFaith @ 3/15/2005 4:57:57 PM #

Coming with 2GB of flash onboard I hope. Boy, would about 512MB of internal and 1.5GB remaining for expansion make for some nice things? :-o

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

RE: CobalT is comming!

Masamune @ 3/15/2005 5:05:10 PM #

The device in question would need USB 2.0 support or it would be useless. If it did, well....

RE: Cobal is comming!

RhinoSteve @ 3/15/2005 5:40:29 PM #

With USB 2.0 becomming common on most CPUs macro-sets now, that should be no more of a problem.

This should shut up the sewing circle ninnies that grog here too much.

RE: Cobal is comming!

Wollombi @ 3/15/2005 6:54:54 PM #

The Athena connector supports USB 2.0 transfer speeds.

_________________
Sean

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

RE: Cobal is comming!

AdamaDBrown @ 3/15/2005 7:47:45 PM #

Cobal is comming!
Cobalt is not dead, it is fashable and late.

Whaddaya know--those almost-sentences came within about a light year of the topic.

Say it with me: Let's see hardware.

RE: Cobal is comming! (The Gospel according to BubbaSteve)

The_Voice_of_Reason @ 3/15/2005 9:07:25 PM #

Cobalt is not dead, it is fashable and late. Thus, it will get even more attention and OS 5 can be milked more...
With USB 2.0 becomming common on most CPUs macro-sets now, that should be no more of a problem.

This should shut up the sewing circle ninnies that grog here too much.

BubbaSteve (BS for short): WTF are you on? Crack? Smack? Ice? E? Grass? You seem to be getting more and more incoherent each week.

Grok this: Old geezers shouldn't try to sound hip.

Windows 2010 is also "comming" (did you mistype cumming?), but I don't see it on any shipping devices right now either. Get a clue, Buddy.

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Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

RE: Cobal is comming!

Masamune @ 3/16/2005 6:33:01 AM #

I hate to say it but VoR does have a good point. We've recently seen the advent of phones with built in hard drives, MMX2 processor technology, Virtual Keyboards and heaven knows what else. All of which is a moot point unless PDA manufacturers actually use the technology. Cobalt has been a long time in coming and its understandable that many forum members are getting really hacked off with it. Therefore it should not be surprising if each new advance in technology is greeted with skeptisism (?) - until the results are actually in the Palm of your hand, it might as just be just be vapourware.

Remember - a Palm in the hand is worth 30 on paper.