Post by account_disabled on Jan 29, 2024 0:35:30 GMT -6
Phison's group of SSDs and portable SSD controllers is in line with general industry trends as their products are showcased at CES 2024. Portable SSDs in all shapes and sizes (including the popular thumb drive as SSD-on-a-stick) have gained significant market share in recent years thanks to increased capacity and performance. An important contribution in the direction of power efficiency (which is important for flash disk vendors to lock the performance of SSD in the thumb drive) is the growth of native flash controllers such as Phison's U17 / U18 and Silicon Motion's SM2320 . Since the launch of the U17 / U18 in 2021, USB4 has become popular on client platforms from both Intel and AMD.
SSD controller Fax Lists vendors are stepping up with this update, and Phison is officially the first with its U21 USB4 eSSD controller. (Note: It appears that the PSSD nomenclature promoted by SSD vendors is being replaced by eSSD on the controller side). Like the U17 / U18, these are single-chip solutions. Small thumb drives can also use them in a multi-chip package (where the flash and controller are combined to save area). Fison showed that the U21 controller can practically saturate the USB4 bus at speeds up to 4000 MB/s. Built on TSMC's 12nm process, the U21 can support up to four channels with 16 possible chips. Backward compatibility is an important aspect.
For certification purposes, USB4 only claims compatibility with USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 3.2 Gen 1, and USB 2.0. However, the U21 can also operate in USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20 Gbps) mode if required. Phison customers can use this controller for PSSDs from 512 GB to 8 TB. Both TLC and QLC NAND can be used. Flash speed up to 1600 MT/s is supported. This can hamper power and energy efficiency a bit, as we've seen higher flash speeds run faster and lower overall power consumption for a given load. A higher flash speed also reduces the number of channels required for a performance target, which also results in power savings. It remains to be seen if other eSSD controller vendors will support 2400 MT/s flash later this year.
SSD controller Fax Lists vendors are stepping up with this update, and Phison is officially the first with its U21 USB4 eSSD controller. (Note: It appears that the PSSD nomenclature promoted by SSD vendors is being replaced by eSSD on the controller side). Like the U17 / U18, these are single-chip solutions. Small thumb drives can also use them in a multi-chip package (where the flash and controller are combined to save area). Fison showed that the U21 controller can practically saturate the USB4 bus at speeds up to 4000 MB/s. Built on TSMC's 12nm process, the U21 can support up to four channels with 16 possible chips. Backward compatibility is an important aspect.
For certification purposes, USB4 only claims compatibility with USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 3.2 Gen 1, and USB 2.0. However, the U21 can also operate in USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20 Gbps) mode if required. Phison customers can use this controller for PSSDs from 512 GB to 8 TB. Both TLC and QLC NAND can be used. Flash speed up to 1600 MT/s is supported. This can hamper power and energy efficiency a bit, as we've seen higher flash speeds run faster and lower overall power consumption for a given load. A higher flash speed also reduces the number of channels required for a performance target, which also results in power savings. It remains to be seen if other eSSD controller vendors will support 2400 MT/s flash later this year.