Seagate invests in Israel’s DensBits to overhaul its flash memory strategy

Seagate is one of the world’s biggest hard disk drive makers, but these days, storage is growing well beyond spinning disks. That’s why Seagate is announcing an investment and strategic agreement with Israel’s DensBits Technologies.

Under the deal, Strategic will help DensBits provide customers with low-cost, high-performance Solid State Drives, or chips based on flash memory technology. Those chips will be targeted at the consumer and enterprise markets.

Cupertino, Calif.-based Seagate invested an undisclosed amount for an equity stake in Haifa, Israel-based DensBits. It will make future products based on DensBits’ Memory Modem controller technology, which will be combined with Seagate’s various storage technologies including its 3-bits-per-cell 1Xnm Flash-based consumer-grade SSDs, and its 2 bits per cell 1Xnm Flash-based enterprise SSDs.

“We are very excited at the opportunity of collaborating with Seagate,” said DensBits chief executive Ilan Hen. “This is yet another testament to our technology leadership, and we strongly believe that the coupling between DensBits’ unique Memory Modem controller technology and Seagate’s exceptional storage capabilities across the board could truly disrupt the industry.”

DensBits improves the reliability of flash memory chips and brings down its costs without compromising on performance. Since flash memory is typically not 100 percent reliable, a considerable part of each chip has to be set aside for a process known as error correction. With better reliability, less error correction is necessary, and the overall chip can be much more efficient.