In the previous month, three SSD controller designers have introduced new enterprise NVMe SSD controllers, bringing a wave of recent competitors to the high-end enterprise/datacenter SSD market. FADU is a relative newcomer to the market, having solely launched one earlier SSD controller. Silicon Motion and Phison are each very acquainted rivals, however they’ve been most profitable with their shopper/client SSD controllers; they’ve been stepping up their enterprise controller efforts in recent times, however gaining floor in that market has been a sluggish course of.
All three firms are actually touting a brand new technology of enterprise NVMe SSD controllers which can be extra trendy and mature. The three firms are poised to compete not simply towards one another, however towards firms like Microchip/Microsemi and Marvell, who’ve a for much longer observe document of success within the enterprise SSD controller market.
Most of the most important NAND flash reminiscence producers now use in-house controller designs for his or her enterprise and datacenter SSDs. Independent SSD controller designers promote to second-tier SSD manufacturers, and in addition generally promote on to hyperscale cloud suppliers which can be slicing out the middle-man. The enterprise fashions on this market are fairly versatile: prospects might take simply the controller ASIC and develop their very own firmware, use turnkey or customized firmware developed by the controller vendor, or begin from a reference design for your complete SSD and customise as wanted. For the quickest time to market, some controller distributors will even prepare contract manufacturing of SSDs on behalf of their prospects.
Silicon Motion SM8266 Controller
Silicon Motion’s new enterprise NVMe controller is the SM8266, a 16-channel design with a PCIe four x4 host interface.
Silicon Motion’s first enterprise NVMe controller was the SM2270. That had a little bit of an odd design: it basically mixed two 8-channel controllers onto one chip behind a shared PCIe front-end supporting PCIe three x8. This allowed Silicon Motion to re-use lots of the design of their very profitable 8-channel shopper/client NVMe controllers whereas simply scaling as much as a 16-channel answer. Silicon Motion hasn’t shared a block diagram for the brand new SM8266, however we suspect they’re nonetheless utilizing the same cut up design because the SM8266 spec sheet mentions twin 32-bit DRAM interfaces.
The SM8266 makes use of the identical 21mmx21mm bundle because the SM2270 however drops assist for an x8 host interface—PCIe four x4 is loads quick. The NAND interface now helps speeds as much as 1200MT/s, the identical as their recently-released SM2267 mainstream client NVMe controller, however a step behind the 1600MT/s supported by their upcoming SM2264 high-end client NVMe controller (each 8-channel designs). The DRAM interface on the SM8266 helps DDR4 and LPDDR3 at sooner speeds than the SM2270, however once more is lagging behind their newest client NVMe controllers that assist LPDDR4(X).
The SM8266 helps as much as 128 IO queues and optionally available NVMe options like Controller Memory Buffer (CMB) and as much as 32 namespaces. Additionally, Silicon Motion can present firmware implementing an Open Channel SSD interface or Key-Value SSD interface. Open Channel assist was a significant spotlight of the SM2270, which was developed primarily for Alibaba’s use. However, most business curiosity in Open Channel SSDs has moved on to the newer NVMe Zoned Namespaces customary.
The Silicon Motion SM8266 is obtainable as a turnkey answer of the controller and firmware with SSD {hardware} reference designs. Silicon Motion’s subsidiary Shannon Systems is utilizing the SM8266 in drives for hyperscale prospects, anticipated to enter manufacturing in 2021.
| Silicon Motion Enterprise/Datacenter NVMe SSD Controllers | ||||||
| SM8266 | SM2270 | |||||
| DRAM Support | 2x 32bit… | |||||
