FORTASA BLOG

CompactFlash Card with Write Protect Switch

Recently a gaming OEM customer has contacted Fortasa to investigate and evaluate our CompactFlash card solution for their Video Poker Machine. What attracted this customer was the specific features we offered that were very beneficial to the application:

Write Protect Switch

Fortasa offers a variant of our standard CompactFlash card product with a built-in hardware Write Protect switch. Typically customer loads the data image onto the Flash card and then sets the WP switch to an on position. With the WP switch in place any destructive host command to the card such as Write or Erase would be ignored by Flash controller. Because the controller ignores the destructive command and not gives an error message, the host can continue to execute code for Flash card access and not be halted by any error messages relating to Write/Erase ignored commands. Even though with the WP switch in the on position all Write/Erase commands are ignored, the Flash controller continuous to monitor the Flash usage and could transparently move around the stored data in case of high bit error rate due to affects of Flash media from read disturb.

Protection Zones

The poker video game system has three different storage requirements:

• Store and manage various validation codes mandated by regulatory agencies
• Store the game code and graphic images
• Store and retrieve player tracking statistics for casino marketing promotion programs

In the past, this customer needed to have three different storage devices to accomplish these requirements:

• Secure One Time Programmable EPROM for validation codes
• DVD-ROM for read only access to game code and graphics
• Persistent storage for storing and updating player tracking information

With the Fortasa CompactFlash card all three of these functions can be addressed in a single product with multiple memory zones.

• Zone 1 would be setup to provide restricted (password protected) access to the validation codes
• Zone 2 would be setup to provide Read-only access to the game code and graphics
• Zone 3 would be setup to provide unrestricted Read/Write access to monitor player statistics

Please see related article about the Protection Zone capabilities in Fortasa CompactFlash cards.

Please contact Fortasa for any specific features of our Industrial CompactFlash card products.