Seagate announced Monday that it had had purchased a stake of DensBits, a pioneer of SSD memory controller technology.

“For the last 30 years, Seagate has delivered technology and product innovation to become the global leader in storage solutions, from high-end enterprise drives to solid-state hybrid drives,” said Rocky Pimentel, Seagate chief sales and marketing officer in a statement. “Seagate is excited to be working with the talented DensBits team and believes we have a significant opportunity with our new strategic relationship to extend our leadership into the SSD market.”

“Under the agreement, DensBits’ Memory Modem controller technology will be integrated with Seagate’s various storage technologies to power a wide range of consumer and enterprise applications including 3 bits/cell (TLC) 1Xnm Flash-based consumer-grade SSD, and 2 bits/cell (MLC) 1Xnm Flash-based enterprise-grade SSD,” Seagate continued in this prepared statement.

DensBits has developed a controller technology called Memory Modem that enables fast and reliable data transfers to NAND flash storage.

Normally with NAND memory each additional cell increases capacity but lowers the drive’s speed and reduces its operable life because of the increased complexity of the chip. NAND memory is sold in three variations: Single level cell (SLC), multi level (MLC) cell, and three level cell (TLC).

Most high performance memory cards are single level cell devices, while consumer and enterprise SSDs are multi level cell.

DensBits believes that their Memory Modems can make high capacity but slow speed three level cell (TLC) memory perform on par with lower capacity but faster multi level cell (MLC) memory.

For Seagate, this buying into SSD technology – a replica of a stratagem also attempted successfully by Western Digital with their acquisition of Siliconsystems Inc. – may be a chance at a redemption for the company in the SSD market. Seagate plays down their enterprise SSD offerings, instead focusing on hard disks or hybrid drives. Their Pulsar.2 drive, reportedly, had performance issues which caused it to overheat.

The terms of the deal between Seagate and DensBits have not been disclosed.