Compact Flash 6 series
AP-CFxxxxLAXS-XXXXXX
3
© 2013 Apacer Technology Inc. Rev. 1.0
1. General Description
Apacer’s value-added Industrial CompactFlash Card offers high performance, high reliability and power-
efficient storage. Regarding standard compliance, this CompactFlash Card complies with CompactFlash
specification revision 6.0, supporting transfer modes up to Programmed Input Output (PIO) Mode 6, Multi-
word Direct Memory Access (DMA) Mode 4, Ultra DMA Mode 6, and PCMCIA Ultra DMA Mode 5.
For power efficiency, this industrial CompactFlash card supports some power smart design mechanisms
such as Power-On-Reset, voltage regulator for output voltage adjustments and power failure protection,
as well as the automatic sleep and wake-up feature.
Apacer’s value-added CFC provides complete PCMCIA – ATA functionality and compatibility. Apacer ‘s
CompactFlash technology is designed for applications in Point of Sale (POS) terminals, telecom, IP-STB,
medical instruments, surveillance systems, industrial PCs and handheld applications such as the new
generation of Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras.
1.1 Performance-Optimized Controller
The CompactFlash Card Controller translates standard CF signals into flash media data and control
signals.
1.1.1 Power Management
The controller unit of this ComactFlash is built with power management design that optimizes power
utilization and voltage flow. It enhances the power efficiency of CompactFlash Card Controller by
employing advanced circuit regulator technology.
1.1.2 RAM
The controller is implemented with RAM as a data process to optimize data transfer between the host and
the flash media.
1.1.3 Error Correction Code (ECC)
The CompactFlash card is programmed with BCH Error Detection Code (EDC) and Error Correction Code
(ECC) algorithms capable of correcting up to 72 random bits in 1KB bytes data.
High performance is achieved through hardware-based error detection and correction.
1.2 Intelligent Endurance Design
1.2.1 Wear-leveling algorithms
Flash memory devices differ from Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) in terms of how blocks are utilized. For HDDs,
when a change is made to stored data, like erase or update, the controller mechanism on HDDs will
perform overwrites on blocks. Unlike HDDs, flash blocks cannot be overwritten and each P/E cycle wears
down the lifespan of blocks gradually. Repeatedly program/erase cycles performed on the same memory
cells will eventually cause some blocks to age faster than others. This would bring flash storages to their
end of service term sooner. Wear leveling is an important mechanism that level out the wearing of blocks
so that the wearing-down of blocks can be almost evenly distributed. This will increase the lifespan of
SSDs. Commonly used wear leveling types are Static and Dynamic.
