BOTHELL, Wash. – Datalight Inc. has said that the company will release a Linux version of its flash file system platform in February. The platform, a combination of Datalight Reliance high-integrity file system and FlashFX Pro intelligent flash media manager, deliver 400% faster write performance and 5 times faster mount speeds when compared to JFFS2.

First introduced in 1998, the company's flash file system products are deployed with four of the top six handset manufacturers and an impressive list of communications, military, aerospace, and industrial customers due to their performance, reliability, and time-to-market advantages. The new Linux version builds on the company's well-known out of the box support for a wide array of over 200 flash parts, including NAND, NOR, fusion flash, and flash memory controllers.

"Many of our customers are considering or already developing on Linux, but are disappointed with the currently available flash support," said Cortney Jacobsen, product manager for Datalight [1]. "Our new platform gives Linux developers a reliable, versatile software solution for integrating flash memory; and even more, developers will benefit from over a decade of flash experience and our accountable support team, two things you won't get from open-source flash file systems."

In addition to supporting a broad library of flash parts, Datalight Reliance and FlashFX Pro use a patented transactional architecture that guarantees reliability and improves boot speeds. Early test results have shown mount times of 0.44s on a 56 MB NAND Flash chip for Datalight products, compared to 2.32s for JFFS2 and 0.69s for YAFFS2. Dynamic Transaction Point™ technology gives device developers the control to tune performance for each unique use case. Test results show raw sequential write speeds of 2.56MB/s for Datalight products, compared to 0.63MB/s for JFFS2 and 1.09MB/s for YAFFS2. Incorporating Datalight products for Linux results in an impressive gain in system responsiveness when compared to the current open-source alternatives.

"Our Linux products represent a new phase in the evolution of embedded Linux and flash memory," stated Roy Sherrill, President of Datalight. "First JFFS simply allowed Linux developers to work with flash; later YAFFS eased some of the complexities of NAND. The Datalight platform is a full-featured, proven commercial solution developed with our customer's performance, time-to-market, and quality needs in mind."

In addition to the new Linux versions, Datalight flash file system products are also available on leading commercial operating systems, including Microsoft Windows CE, Wind River VxWorks and Mentor Graphics NucleusPLUS.