EUROS offers a so-called „flash translation layer“for NOR- and NAND-Flash technologies. What is this layer for?

If a standard file system like FAT is used on a FLASH memory without FTL, then some flash blocks will be used more frequently than others. Especially the directory and the file allocation table are accessed much more often than file data.

This, in turn, leads to some flash blocks being erased and written very often and the maximum block erase count is reached very early for these blocks.

A „translation layer“avoids that a file system directly accesses the physical areas. It translates data accesses and distributes write accesses to all flash blocks doing a wear-leveling. On NAND-Flash memories, the FTL additionally takes care of the maximum write count to an erased block.

This method leads to a longer life cycle of the flash memory and, of course, the device containing this memory.

The EUROS file systems (FMS and SafeFAT) can use FTL, so it is possible to use any flash memory like a hard disk from any application.