Swissbit launches CFexpress 2.0 Type B cards for industrial use

Swissbit has expanded its industrial memory card range with a pioneering new form. With its new G-20 series, the company is launching a range of CFexpress 2.0 Type B cards, which are considered the high-performance successor to the CFast standard.

CFexpress combines all the advantages of a removable storage medium with the performance of PCIe-SSDs, all housed in a robust casing. It opens the door to a wide range of applications ranging from industrial automation and gaming to transportation and medical technology as well as applications where thermal management is critical. Available with capacities up to 1 TB, the new CFexpress series features a high-performance interface based on 2-lane NVMe 1.3 and PCIe Gen 3.1 specifications. In addition to variants with 3D TLC NAND (G-20), Swissbit offers a pSLC version (G-26).

“CFexpress offers real added value to customers needing to quickly replace or upgrade memory in the field. The combination of flexibility, robustness and performance is unique in this form factor and offers a significant advancement over Compact Flash and CFast. We are confident that CFexpress will prove to be a ‘game changer’ for the industry,” comments Roger Griesemer, General Manager Memory Solutions at Swissbit.

Thanks to the NVMe 1.3 interface, which has already proven itself in other industrial SSD form factors such as M.2 or U.2, the G-20 series achieves up to 1,620 MB/s for sequential reads and 830 MB/s for sequential writes. For random accesses, it exceeds 115,000 and 131,000 IOPS for reads and writes, respectively.

The G-20 with 3D TLC NAND is available immediately with storage capacities from 15 to 480 GB (the 1 TB version is currently in development). Swissbit also provides the G-26 as a pure pSLC version for applications that require continuous writing of small data packets and very long maintenance intervals. In comparison to the G-20, it has a tenfold longer service life.

Robust and temperature-resistant

The type B housing of the CFexpress 2.0 provides exceptional mechanical protection against environmental influences. Because the gold-plated pins are completely covered and thus protected from contact, the card is dust and moisture-resistant while also being vibration-resistant.

Designed for industrial use, Swissbit’s G-20 is specially engineered for efficient heat dissipation. This, together with advanced firmware processes, allows for operation in high-temperature environments and fanless enclosures. The G-20 eliminates the need for a local DRAM cache by using the Host Memory Buffer (HMB) function, resulting in low power consumption without sacrificing performance. At high operating temperatures, special data maintenance features provide additional protection for stored data.

Security features

The new CFexpress series includes several standard and optional data protection features, including end-to-end data protection that ensures the full integrity of internal data paths. AES and TCG Opal are available as an option and provide additional data protection for the host system.

Intellectual property, licenses, and other sensitive data are all secured with AES-256 encryption. This includes applications in which device settings and configurations need to be securely and reliably transferred from one device to another.