Silicon Motion Announces SM2256 SSD Controller Now Supports Micron’s Latest 16nm TLC NAND –Computex 2015 Update

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, a world-leading producer of NAND flash controllers for solid state storage devices (SSDs), is announcing that its SM2256 client SSD controller now supports Micron’s latest 16nm TLC NAND. This enables solid state drive producers to create TLC-based SSDs that are high-performance, feature unprecedented reliability, and are cost-effective.

Silicon Motion’s SM2256 is the best-performing, cost-optimized four-channel SATA 6Gb/s client SSD controller on the market, now supporting Micron’s newest 16nm TLC NAND flash memory. When the SM2256 is coupled with Micron’s 128Gb TLC NAND chips, SSDs are able to attain sequential read speeds of (up to) 540MB/s, and sequential write speeds of (up to) 460Mb/s. This same combination attains random 4K read speeds of (up to) 90,000 IOPS, and random 4K write speeds of (up to) 80,000 IOPS.

According to Nelson Duann, VP of Product Marketing at Silicon Motion, “Our SM2256 solution coupled with Micron’s 16nm TLC NAND delivers the most advanced, cost-effective and reliable SSDs in the market. Our customers can offer a new class of no-compromise, cost-effective SSDs that leverage the strengths of NAND technology advancements at affordable prices.”

Silicon Motion utilizes its proprietary NANDXtend error-correction code (ECC) technology to enhance the endurance and retention capabilities of TLC NAND, providing more than 3X the reliability of TLC SSDs, as compared to competing BCH ECC methods. The SM2256 supports ONFI, Toggle 2.0 and asynchronous NAND. The SM2256 incorporates modern security protocols, is compliant with AES256 encryption, Opal full-drive encryption, and Trusted Computing Group (TCG) standards. It supports both commercial (O to 70 degrees Celsius) and industrial grade (-40 to 85 degrees Celsius) requirements.

Eric Endebrock, VP of marketing for Micron’s storage business, observes that “Solid state controller technology is critical to any storage solution. Micron values Silicon Motion’s leadership and collaboration in helping drive the revolution of flash storage to an ever-broadening set of applications.”

The Micron 16nm TLC NAND and SM2256 combination is ideal for client SSDs utilized in laptops, ultrabooks, tablets, and as an HDD replacement. You can view Silicon Motion’s press release announcing its latest compatibility with Micron’s 16nm TLC NAND can be viewed in its entirety here.