The company opened a
The company opened a new, state-of-the-art electronics manufacturing facility in Berlin, Germany in 2019 Source: Swissbit Industrial storage and security solutions for IoT 20 years of flash memory Since 2001, Swissbit has established itself as the only independent, European supplier of flash-memory solutions for industrial use. Now, with its new, state-ofthe-art electronics manufacturing facility, which opened in Berlin, Germany in 2019, and the creation of the Embedded IoT business unit, the company says it is continuing to pursue this path of growth and innovation by expanding into security products for the Internet of Things (IoT). All products, ranging from SSDs with PCIe and SATA interfaces to USB flash drives, SD and microSD memory cards and managed NAND BGAs, are ‘Made in Germany’ 20 years in the electronics industry is an age; particularly for storage media. When SD cards were introduced to the market in 2000, their maximum storage capacity was just 64 MB. It was at around this time, in the summer of 2001, that Swissbit was created – following a management buy-out from the Siemens Semiconductor Group. Over the next two decades, the company grew into a Source: Swissbit leading global technology provider offering solutions for all common storage interfaces. Today, the company’s product portfolio ranges from SSDs with PCIe and SATA interfaces (mSATA, Slim SATA, CFast, M.2 and 2.5“ as well as CompactFlash) to USB flash drives, SD and microSD memory cards and Managed NAND BGAs. All these storage products have one thing in common: they are, and have always been, ‘Made in Germany’. Since 2008, the company has focused entirely on industrial-grade memory solutions, which today are increasingly based on 3D NAND. The company says the recipe for the success of these memory products is its close cooperation with manufacturers of NAND chips and controllers, an own production line with stringent quality testing, and the development of firmware that is optimized to customer-specific requirements. The latter is particularly important in an industrial environment, where the requirements for products with 3D NAND are significantly different to those in the consumer or IT markets. Durability 34 EPP Europe » 11 | 2021
PCB & ASSEMBLY « and reliability of a storage medium for applications in industry, telecommunications, automotive or medical technology rely on smart firmware features, an area in which the Swiss supplier is a pioneer. New capacities, new markets The company underlined its clear commitment to Germany as a manufacturing location when, at the end of 2019, it built its second plant in Berlin on a site of more than 20,000 m². The stateof-the-art production facility combines SMT lines and clean rooms with advanced 3D packaging, tripling the previous production capacity. The advanced capabilities and technologies in the factory mean it is able to produce highly integrated system-in-package solutions – something rarely seen in European facilities. Accordingly, other manufacturers are offered access to these capacities as well as to the advanced engineering skills of the companies electronics experts. From secure memory cards to embedded IoT The company has been actively promoting the combination of reliable storage media and security features since 2013. Initially, the focus was on SD and microSD cards with integrated encryption software that made tamper-proof mobile phones or data protection compliant memory modules possible. With increasing demand and rapid digitalization, however, the company began to wonder if these were memory cards with a security solution or instead a security solution in the shape of memory cards? This alternative perspective generated a whole host of application opportunities and led to the formation of the company’s ‘Embedded IoT’ business unit in 2019. Source: Swissbit Swissbit CEO Silvio Muschter The most valuable asset is data. At Swissbit we see it as our key responsibility to store and protect this data reliably. Silvio Muschter, Swissbit CEO The name of the new business unit hints at two directions. Firstly, the factory in Berlin facilitates the production of system-in-package and multi-chipmodules – also in the form of a microSD card or a customized form factor. Additional elements integrated microcontrollers, NAND chips and crypto chips can be embedded in these modules. However, sensors, wireless chips and antennas can also be embedded to offer additional machine communication features. Secondly, many application scenarios refer to embedded systems and the protection of their data and their communication. The ability to offer such modules in the shape of flash-memory has a definitive advantage. Even older machinery and systems generally have a USB port or an interface for memory cards. This means that it is not only modern systems, designed with a secure IoT in mind, but also existing devices that can be secured using our security memory. EPP Europe » 11 | 2021 35
