Light Weight, High Density Space Qualified Bulk Memory

Present space based memory storage system technology cannot accommodate the performance requirements of some future missions. Three critical areas need to be addressed in order to bring the next generation memory system to fruition. These areas are power, storage density, and backplane speed. Present Solid State Recorders (SSR's), which are presently the de facto standard for space memory systems, generally uses large arrays of SDRAM memories with a shared bus backplane architecture. These systems are ideal in terms of cost, reliability, and modularity. Commercial SDRAM technology is cost effective and readily available. Shared buses allow flexible modular configurations with simple protocols, and single point failure immune systems with graceful degradation of the memory array provides tremendous reliability. Unfortunately, these technologies do not support the performance required for next generation systems. This proposal develops a modified system architecture that uses high speed network interfaces to provide a modular, flexible, and memory independent system architecture. Memory and stacking technologies will be investigated and network based memory boards based on the selected memory technology will be designed.