Microchip is asserting their first PCIe 4.0-capable SSD controller for low-power and entry-level enterprise SSDs. The new Flashtec NVMe 3108 is the smaller 8-channel spinoff of the 16-channel Flashtec 3016, first introduced two years in the past. The 3016 has since moved from sampling to mass manufacturing, and as a spinoff primarily based on the identical structure, the brand new 3108 is anticipated to make that very same transition way more rapidly: sampling now, and manufacturing someday within the first half of subsequent 12 months.
The Flashtec NVMe 3108 is not fairly actually a 3016 sliced in half, however that was kind of the place to begin for creating the 3108. In discussing how the 3016 and 3108 differ, Microchip opened up a bit extra about their controller structure on the whole, and the way their PCIe 4.Zero technology 3xxx controllers are totally different from the sooner PCI 3.Zero primarily based Flashtec NVMe 2xxx controllers. First and least stunning, each the 3016 and 3108 are constructed on a 16nm FinFET course of, which is what nearly all PCIe 4.Zero SSD controllers are adopting.
The exterior IO interfaces of the Flashtec NVMe 3108 are principally reduce in half relative to the NVMe 3016: Four quite than Eight lanes of PCIe, Eight quite than 16 channels for interfacing with the NAND flash. The DDR4 DRAM interface on the 3108 can function as a 16-bit, 32-bit or 40-bit (32+Eight bit ECC) bus, whereas the 3016 makes use of both a 40-bit (32+8) or 72-bit (64+8) bus width. All collectively, these modifications result in a drastically lowered pin rely, permitting the 3108 controller to make use of a bundle sufficiently small to suit on a M.2 SSD. There’s additionally some important die house and energy financial savings.
The 3108 runs its DDR4 interface a bit slower than its bigger sibling (2400 MHz as an alternative of 3200 MHz), however helps the identical NAND interface speeds as much as 1200 MT/s — an enormous enchancment over the 533 MT/s supported by the earlier technology Flashtec controllers. This permits the 3108 to hit sequential learn speeds of over 6 GB/s and random learn speeds of 1M IOPS when paired with sufficiently quick flash reminiscence. This is not fairly saturating what a PCIe Four x4 hyperlink is able to, however is aggressive with different PCIe gen4 enterprise SSD options which have been introduced such because the Samsung PM9A3 (6.5GB/s, 900okay IOPS) or the 16-channel Kioxia CD6 (6.2GB/s, 1M IOPS).
The Flashtec NVMe 3108 consists of fewer processor cores than the 3016, however nonetheless greater than crucial for implementing fundamental SSD performance. Microchip has designed the 3108 and the 3016 with spare processing energy to accommodate computational storage use instances. This technology switched from Tensilica CPU cores to Arm cores, making for a extra acquainted improvement setting for patrons creating firmware for these SSD controllers. Microchip says some prospects are even operating Linux on a subset of the controller’s Arm cores.
Two main options of the Flashtec NVMe 3016 are outright lacking on the 3108. The smaller controller does not embody the compression accelerator {hardware} from the 3016, so it’s not as properly suited to computational storage obligation alongside these traces. The 3108 additionally lacks the enlargement port of the 3016. The bigger chip’s enlargement port is meant to permit two SSD controllers to pair up and be used as a 32-channel controller, since Microchip is now not producing a monolithic 32-channel model of their controllers. This enlargement port is unneeded on the 3108 since they have already got a 16-channel resolution that’s easier and certain sooner and extra environment friendly than a dual-chip 8+Eight channel setup can be. (Competitors within the enterprise SSD controller house have additionally used dual-controller designs, reminiscent of Marvell’s dual-chip 16-channel resolution. Silicon Motion has taken an in-between technique, designing a single-chip 16-channel controller that’s internally organized…
