User guide
900S Series Industrial Grade CFast Product Manual v2.0Cactus Technologies
®
2
Supported Standards
1.1.
Cactus Technologies CFast card is fully electrically compatible with the following specication:
• ATA 8 Specication published by ANSI
• Serial ATA 2.6 Specication published by the Serial ATA International Organization
• CFast 1.0 Specication published by CFA
Product Features
1.2.
Cactus Technologies Industrial CFast card contains a high level, intelligent controller. This intelligent
controller provides many capabilities including the following:
• Standard ATA register and command set (same as found on most magnetic disk drives).
• Manages details of erasing and programming ash memory independent of the host system
• Sophisticated defect managing capabilities (similar to magnetic disk drives).
• Sophisticated system for error recovery using powerful error correction code (ECC).
• Intelligent power management for low power operation.
1.2.1. Host and Technology Independence
Cactus Technologies® Industrial CFast card appears as a standard SATA disk drive to the host
system. The drive utilizes a 512-byte sector which is the same as that in an IDE magnetic disk
drive. To write or read a sector (or multiple sectors), the host computer software simply issues an
ATA Read or Write command to the drive as per the SATA protocol. The host software then waits
for the command to complete. The host system does not get involved in the details of how the
ash memory is erased, programmed or read as this is all managed by the built-in controller in
the drive. Also, with the intelligent on-board controller, the host system software will not require
changing as new ash memory evolves. Thus, systems that support the Cactus Technologies®
Industrial CFast products today will continue to work with future Cactus Technologies® Industrial
CFast cards built with new ash technology without having to update or change host software.
1.2.2. Defect and Error Management
Cactus Technologies® Industrial CFast card contains a sophisticated defect and error management
system similar to those found in magnetic disk drives. The defect management is completely
transparent to the host and does not consume any user data space.
The soft error rate for Cactus Technologies® Industrial CFast card is much lower than that of
magnetic disk drives. In the extremely rare case where a read error does occur, the drive has
sophisticated ECC to recover the data.
These defect and error management systems, coupled with the solid-state construction, give
Cactus Technologies® Industrial CFast cards unparalleled reliability.