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I wanted to bring this information to the forefront because it’s hard to imagine just how dramatically our world will change once PCIe 6.0 (Gen6) becomes mainstream. Today, we’re already achieving data transfer speeds of up to 14 GB/s, and Gen6 will double that to an astonishing 28 GB/s.
What’s remarkable is how easily we overlook the advancements that faster data speeds have already enabled in CPUs, graphics processing, and storage technologies.
We live in a world where virtually everything happens instantly. Think about it: you can post something on Facebook and receive a response from someone on the other side of the planet faster than it takes you to proofread your own comment for spelling mistakes. Many people also don’t realize that the smartphone in their pocket today is significantly more powerful than the desktop computer they purchased not all that long ago.
As impressive as today’s technology is, the next generation of bandwidth and performance may reshape our expectations of speed and responsiveness all over again.
The SMI SM8466 is a Gen 6 16-channel 4-lane NVMe enterprise SSD controller that will boost transfer speeds to 28GB/s and double IOPS to 7000K. It will support QLC and TLC NAND flash memory and be able to boost capacity support to 512TB. Imagine the cost!
Still looking forward, SMI demonstrated their newest SM8388 Gen5 enterprise SSD controller with speeds of 14.6GB/s read and 9.3GB/s write and over 3500K IOPS. This is some achievement when you consider it can support TLC and QLC NAND up to a capacity point of 128TB. Take a look at this relatively new seldom seen E.1L 9.5mm SSD form factor for example. This is the form factor you might see when the SSD is hitting 100+TB capacity.
Last but not least, we never truly seem to get a clear indication of company success as a result of NDA’s between the companies preventing one another from speaking of their contracts. This display demonstrates just how much success SMI has seen with their SM2508 Gen5 8-channel SSD controller. Congratulations SMI!
