Flash memory is increasingly being used as a storage medium for mobile devices such as mobile phones, PMPs, and UMPCs because of low power consumption, fast random access, and high shock & vibration resistance. In this talk, first I will explain the basics and current trends of NAND flash memory, the type of flash memory used for storage applications. Second, I will introduce the concept of a flash memory solid state disk (SSD) that provides an interface identical to that of hard disk drive (HDD) out of flash memory. Third, I will explain the motivations, design, implementation, and performance evaluation of the Hydra solid state disk that our research group has been working on for the past three years. Finally, I will conclude with future research directions on flash memory in general and solid state disks in particular.

Sang Lyul Min is a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at Seoul National University. His current research interests are in embedded systems, SW/HW support for flash memory, real-time systems, computer architecture, and computer performance evaluations.

Before he joined the faculty of Seoul National University in 1992, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering at Pusan National University from 1990 to 1992 and a visiting scientist at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center from 1989 to 1990. He received a BS degree from the Department of Computer Engineering, Seoul National University, in 1983; an MS degree from the Department of Computer Engineering, Seoul National University, in 1985; and a Ph.D degree from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, the University of Washington, in 1989.

He has served on a number of program committees of technical conferences and workshops including the ACM Conference on Embedded Systems Software (EMSOFT), the IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS), and the ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Languages, Compilers (LCTES). He was also a member of the editorial board of the IEEE Transactions on Computers and has been serving as an IEEE Distinguished Visitor since 2005. He is a member of the Korea Information Science Society, Association for Computing Machinery, and the IEEE Computer Society, and was a Fulbright scholar from 1985 to 1990.