Mercury Systems introduces second generation of space-qualified solid state drives in 6U SpaceVPX form factor

ANDOVER, Mass. - Mercury Systems, Inc. recently announced the start of customer engagements for its second generation of the TRRUST-Stor VPX RT family of radiation-tolerant solid state drives (SSD) featuring up to 940GB user capacity in a 6U SpaceVPX form factor.

The new device delivers enhanced versatility with improved error correction code (ECC) and both Serial RapidIO and Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) host interfaces. The SpaceVPX offers agile interoperability, the TRRUST-Stor VPX RT family enables accelerated system design directly addressing the demand for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites and mission critical systems operating in radiation-intense environments.

In terrestrial environments, the NAND flash memory devices used in a traditional SSD device are prone to data corruption without the use of ECC. In radiation-exposed environments, data corruption is accelerated due to the occurrence of single-event effects (SEE) and total ionizing dose (TID) degradation which negatively impact the functionality of the NAND flash memory used in the device.

To counter these damaging effects, Mercury has improved the ECC performance of the original 3U TRRUST-Stor VPX RT device. With 30% more error corrections built-in, the company’s new 6U device integrates high-reliability defect mitigation thereby enabling normal read and write operations in the presence of harmful ionizing radiation. Additionally, the new SSD features redundant NAND flash to further improve long-term reliability and data integrity.

Mercury is also developing new architectures to provide feature-rich space-grade SSD devices of up to 32TB user capacity for space radar applications.

Mercury is now accepting orders for TRRUST-Stor VPX RT 6U flight units for delivery in the last quarter of calendar year 2019. Additionally, Mercury welcomes inquiries from customers whose system designs may benefit from a 3U form factor variant of the second generation product, which is currently under development. For application assistance, additional product information or purchase inquiries, please visit http://www.mrcy.com/Rad-Tolerant-SSD.

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