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This week at Computex Taipei, Silicon Motion displayed their newest SM2524XT Gen5 SSD controller which held a surprising first. This SSD controller is built on the TSMC 6nm process and is a DRAMless controller which relies on your systems HMB, better known as the host memory buffer. The HMB is an SSD feature that allows a drive without its own built-in DRAM cache to borrow a small portion of your computer’s system RAM to store its mapping tables. This speeds up data transfer significantly.
On display is a form factor 2280 M.2 SSD which contains the SM2524XT controller and performance specs list 14GB/s read and 12GB/s write with up to 2200K read and write IOPS. Two things stand out with respect to the SM2524XT and the first is that it speaks to an active power usage of only 2.5w which is absolutely incredible. In a notebook, this ultra lower power usage translates to less heat and longer battery life.
Just as unique is the fact that this is the first time we have seen a 4-channel SSD that supports 3D TLC/QLC NAND up to 4800MT/s. Presently, their are only two manufacturers that could support such and that is KIOXIA with their BiCS9 and I believe YMTX X4 as well. Of course, this controller also contains SMI 8th NANDXtend ECC technology.
Next up, we have the SMI SM2755 UFS 4.1 controller. The UFS controller is probably one of the most overlooked, yet fascinating tech devices unknown to many. Do you have a smartphone?
The SM2755 is a 2-channel controller that is capable of incredible speeds up to 4.4GB/s thoughput and 1000K IOPS. If you think about it, the smartphone in your hand is most likely more powerful than the PC you were using only a few years back. This small UFS controller is the reason.
Just as interesting, and even smaller, is the SMI SM2738 eMMC controller which you will find in the newest smart glasses and smart watches today. Although a tad slower than the UFS chip at 340MB/s read and 300MB/s write, the eMMC controller enables things that could never have been accomplished previously, simply because of its size and speed!
SMI also had a USB4 external SSD controller on display, the SM2324, which was hitting USB4 speeds of 4GB/s read and 3.7GB/s write. This controller supports external SSDs up to 32TB, is an 8-channel controller with 32CEs (1,600 MT/s) and supports 3D TLC and QLC NAND. It has end-to end-data protection, AES256-bit encryption, ONFI 5.0 and Toggle 3.0 NAND interface.
Last but not least, Computex seems to have taken on a bit of a new face this year, in that we are now seeing more and more enterprise and data center SSDs. We may elaborate this a bit more with an additional article or two, time permitting. SMI provided information on their Gen 6 controller, the SM8466, which is a 16-channel controller capable of running at 4,800MT/s and achieving speeds of 28GB/s, double what we see presently with Gen5.
There SM8388 is a Gen 5 power efficient Nearline SSD capable of up to 14GB/s throughput and 3500K IOPS and they had this controller operational and displaying performance results.
