Phison at CES 2021: New USB SSD Controllers, Adds E21T For…

At CES 2021, Phison gave us the same old updates on their SSD controller roadmap. The most vital new merchandise coming this yr are a pair of USB flash drive controllers for high-end transportable SSDs, designed to compete towards present options that mix a USB to NVMe bridge chip with an ordinary NVMe SSD controller. Phison can also be planning to introduce a brand new entry-level DRAMless NVMe SSD controller later this yr.

Phison U17 and U18 USB 3.2 SSD Controllers

For transportable SSDs, Phison is introducing the U17 and U18 controllers. The U17 makes use of a USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 (10Gb/s) host interface and a two-channel NAND interface operating at as much as 1200 MT/s. The U18 doubles these: USB 3.2 Gen2x2 (20Gb/s) and a four-channel NAND interface. The efficiency specs might look lackluster in comparison with Phison’s NVMe SSD controllers, however they’re fairly near saturating what their respective USB host interfaces can deal with, and efficiency shall be aggressive with NVMe+USB bridge primarily based transportable SSDs. However, the U17 and U18 can have a major energy effectivity benefit, decrease value and smaller PCB footprint than present transportable SSDs. Phison can even be offering TCG Opal encryption assist on the U18, enabling a degree of safety they are saying is unimaginable to realize with NVMe+USB bridge options.

Phison expects to complete qualification of the U17 and U18 controllers later this month. We’re hoping to get a efficiency preview shortly thereafter by testing their reference designs, and retail merchandise must be displaying up throughout the subsequent a number of months.

Phison E21T: Low-End NVMe Moves to 12nm

For NVMe SSDs, the one new controller Phison is speaking about this yr is the E21T, their newest DRAMless NVMe controller. This is a follow-up to the E19T controller, which has seen little or no use in retail shopper SSDs however has truly been outselling their high-end E16 PCIe 4.zero controller resulting from sturdy demand from OEMs (particularly from an unnamed buyer with a highly regarded gaming product). With the E21T, Phison is lastly transferring this product section from 28nm to 12nm fabrication, which permits for efficiency and energy enhancements of about 25% in comparison with the E19T. The fundamental structure hasn’t modified a lot for the E21T: it is nonetheless a 4-channel controller managed by a single ARM core plus Phison’s proprietary coprocessors. Performance has elevated considerably, with peak throughput now rivaling the high-end E16 controller (although real-world efficiency on heavy workloads should be slower because of the downsides of a DRAMless controller design).

Phison is planning to start out sampling the E21T to clients round June of this yr with mass manufacturing ramping up in This autumn—round after we ought to begin seeing PCIe 4.zero SSDs catching on with pocket book OEMs. Most of the drives utilizing the E21T will in all probability pair it with QLC NAND, and Phison has efficiency projections for what we will anticipate when utilizing Micron’s 176L QLC.