The first batch of PCIe 5.0 SSDs are all likely to be based on Phison's PS5026-E26 controller, which offers eight NAND channels, capable of supporting NAND speeds of up to 2400 MT/s. Phison's own figures for the controller are 13 GB/s writes and 12 GB/s reads, with up to 1.5 million random read IOPS and 2 million random write IOPS. However, as we've already seen from various SSD brands, many PCIe 5.0 SSDs won't exceed 10 GB/s when it comes to the sequential read/write speeds. This is because the current NAND flash simply isn't fast enough to saturate the PCIe 5.0 bus, which is capable of 15.75 GB/s. That said, Micron's 232-layer 3D NAND should be able to boost the performance up to 12.4 GB/s based on the numbers Gigabyte announced for their Aorus Gen 10000 SSD.

Based on an article over at Tom's Hardware, we shouldn't expect too many drives that exceed 10 GB/s sequential writes at launch, due to most drives using 176-layer 3D NAND flash, that is limited to 1600 MT/s. As such, it might be wise to hold off on buying the first generation of PCIe 5.0 drives and wait for better availability of 232-layer 3D NAND, as beyond Micron, SK Hynix is expected to have a 238-layer 3D NAND flash in the market sometime in the first half of 2023. If you're not really eager to have the fastest SSD out there for pure bragging rights, it would seem that mid 2023 might be the right time to get a PCIe 5.0 SSD.

As reported by BusinessKorea, Apple, one of the largest companies in the world, will source its 3D NAND from Chinese memory maker Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC). Known for supplying 3D NAND to Chinese SSD makers, YTMC's reported contract with Apple will fuel the upcoming iPhone 14 SKU manufacturing. Whether or not this partnership will expand to other products, it is essential to have as many storage sources as possible, as Apple sells millions of devices per year. YTMC is on track to deliver 3D NAND flash with the latest Xstacking 3.0 six-plane architecture that provides triple-level cell storage with I/O speeds of 2400 MT/s.

YTMC has joined the list of 3D NAND flash vendors that Apple works with, including SK Hynix, Samsung, Kioxia, and possibly others. This partnership also highlights that the Chinese memory output is sufficient and significant enough to break into more markets worldwide, not remaining exclusive to domestic use.

MaxLinear, Inc, a leading provider of radio frequency (RF), analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits, and Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (NasdaqGS: SIMO) ("Silicon Motion"), a global leader in NAND flash controllers for solid state storage devices, today announced that at Silicon Motion's extraordinary general meeting (the "EGM") of shareholders, held on August 31, 2022, shareholders of Silicon Motion approved the previously announced merger agreement under which MaxLinear will, subject to the terms and conditions thereof, acquire Silicon Motion, and approved other proposals related to the transaction.

More specifically, at the EGM, securityholders of Silicon Motion approved, by the requisite vote, the acquisition of Silicon Motion by MaxLinear, including the approval of: (a) the Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated May 5, 2022 (as it may be amended from time to time, the "Merger Agreement"), by and among MaxLinear, Shark Merger Sub, an exempted company incorporated and existing under the laws of the Cayman Islands and a wholly-owned subsidiary of MaxLinear ("Merger Sub"), and Silicon Motion, pursuant to which Merger Sub will merge with and into Silicon Motion with Silicon Motion continuing as the surviving company and becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of MaxLinear (the "Merger"); (b) the plan of merger required to be filed with the Registrar of Companies in the Cayman Islands; (c) the Merger itself, on the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Merger Agreement; and (d) all other transactions and arrangements contemplated by the Merger Agreement.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the publication of JESD220F: Universal Flash Storage 4.0. In addition, an update to the complementary JESD223E UFSHCI 4.0 standard, and a new companion standard for UFS version 3.1 and above, JESD231 File Based Optimization, have also been published. Developed for mobile applications and computing systems requiring high performance with low power consumption, UFS 4.0 introduces significant bandwidth and data protection improvements over the earlier version of the standard. All three standards are available for download from the JEDEC website.

Transcend Information, has recently introduced a whole series of 112-layer 3D NAND solid-state drives featuring wide-temperature tolerance, operating stably from -40°C to 85°C and demonstrating remarkable endurance. The form factors include 2.5", M.2, and mSATA types, suitable for embedded devices, vehicle systems, and slim servers. With up to 4 TB capacity, this rugged solution overcomes the challenges of extreme industrial environments, empowering applications in smart factories, modern infrastructures, and surveillance in the IoT era.

Transcend utilizes 112-layer 3D NAND flash to build wide-temp SSDs, which support the mainstream SATA III interface and the high-speed PCIe interface. With up to 4 TB capacity, proven performance is delivered between -40°C and 85°C thanks to an in-house sorting process and rigorous temperature tests which ensure the SSDs can adapt to rapid temperature change and thermal shock. Meanwhile, anti-sulfur technology, Corner Bond, and 30µ" gold fingers are incorporated to enhance key component protection and effectively prolong SSD lifespan. All these features create higher reliability for demanding applications like roadside monitoring systems which are exposed to long hours of high temperatures, or industrial computers that have to ensure non-stop high-speed operation.

During this year's Flash Memory Summit, Phison, a company known for SSD controllers and now flash drives, demonstrated a system running AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors based on Zen 4 architecture. What is interesting about the shown specification is that the system was running an engineering sample of an upcoming Zen 4-based CPU with the latest storage technologies at impressive speeds. Using a Phison PS5026-E26 SSD controller, also called E26, the PCIe 5.0 SSD is powered by Micron's latest 232-layer TLC NAND flash. This new NAND technology will also bring greater densities to the market by promising higher endurance, higher read/write speeds, and better efficiency.

With AMD's upcoming AM5 platform, support for PCIe 5.0 SSDs is a welcome addition. And we today have some preliminary tests that show just how fast these SSDs can run. In CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4, it achieved over 10 GB/s in both read and write. We know that the E26 controller is capable of 12 GB/s speeds, so more fine-tuning is needed. Being an early sample, we expect final specifications to be better. The system is powered by an engineering sample of a six-core, twelve-threaded Zen 4 CPU running at unknown clocks, codenamed 100-000000593-20_Y. We can expect to see more of this technology once AMD's AM5 platform lands and Phison-powered SSDs hit the shelves in September.

YMTC today at the Flash Memory Summit (FMS) 2022 unveiled its X3-9070 TLC 3D NAND flash powered by Xtacking 3.0 architecture. Since its debut show at FMS 2018, YMTC's Xtacking technology has become a hallmark of the company's vision for innovation, and the approach to hybrid bonding has been widely recognized as one of the key enablers of the industry's future growth. Built out to be a common growth platform that drives value and innovation in the semiconductor ecosystem, YMTC's Xtacking 3.0 architecture opens up a world of opportunities for diversified applications in 5G, AloT, and beyond.

From 1.0 to 3.0, YMTC's Xtacking technology, a heterogeneous 3D integration architecture, has established a proven track record of success, as evidenced by a diverse portfolio of Xtacking NAND-based system solutions, including SATA III, PCIe Gen3 & Gen4 SSDs, as well as eMMC & UFS for mobile and embedded applications, garnering recognition from leading OEMs.

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, today unveiled an array of next-generation memory and storage technologies during Flash Memory Summit 2022, held at the Santa Clara (California) Convention Center, Aug. 2-4. In a keynote titled "Memory Innovations Navigating the Big Data Era," Samsung spotlighted four areas of technological advancement driving the big data market—data movement, data storage, data processing and data management—and revealed its leading-edge memory solutions addressing each field.

To maximize data center efficiency in an increasingly data-driven world, Samsung introduced a next-generation storage technology, "Petabyte Storage." The new solution will allow a single server unit to pack more than one petabyte of storage, enabling server manufacturers to sharply increase their storage capacity within the same floor space with a minimal number of servers. High server utilization will also help to lower power consumption.

Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller and storage solutions, today announced the launch of its X1 controller based solid state drive (SSD) platform that delivers the industry's most advanced enterprise SSD solution. Engineered with Phison's technology to meet the evolving demands of faster and smarter global data-center infrastructures, the X1 SSD platform was designed in partnership with Seagate Technology Holdings plc, a world leader in mass-data storage infrastructure solutions. The X1 SSD customizable platform offers more computing with less energy consumption. With a cost-effective solution that eliminates bottlenecks and improves quality of service, the X1 offers more than a 30 percent increase in data reads than existing market competitors for the same power used.

"We combined Seagate's proprietary data management and customer integration capabilities with Phison's cutting-edge technology to create highly customized SSDs that meet the ever-evolving needs of the enterprise storage market," said Sai Varanasi, senior vice president of product and business marketing at Seagate Technology. "Seagate is excited to partner with Phison on developing advanced SSD technology to provide the industry with increased density, higher performance and power efficiency for all mass capacity storage providers."

This week at the Flash Memory Summit Conference & Expo, KIOXIA America, Inc.—along with the entire industry - will celebrate an important milestone: the 35th anniversary of its invention of NAND flash memory. While looking back at the transformative technology it invented back in 1987, KIOXIA also has its eyes on the future, defining what's next for flash by introducing innovative new products, form factors, and solutions. At FMS, the company will highlight how it is using flash memory to drive advancements and improvements in a wide variety of applications, including mobile computing, the edge, the cloud, data centers and automotive.

KIOXIA's Scott Nelson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer and Shigeo (Jeff) Ohshima, technology executive, SSD Application Engineering will jointly present a keynote session titled: "KIOXIA: 35 Years of Flash & Beyond." The session will highlight the 35th Anniversary of the invention of flash memory and will look forward to how KIOXIA is driving the future of this game-changing technology.

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation ("Silicon Motion"), a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers and solid-state storage devices today announces MonTitan, a PCIe Gen5 SSD solution platform perfectly suited for the most challenging Datacenter and Enterprise applications. Silicon Motion's new MonTitan platform features an entirely new, purpose-built ASIC and FW architecture, optimized for performance and QoS. Its unique Layered FW stack enables the development of customer differentiated solutions with a high degree of flexibility and accelerated time to market, all while reducing engineering cost.

"SSD storage solutions are evolving to address new challenges in data centers which demand changes in storage platforms and operating models," said Nelson Duann, Silicon Motion's Senior Vice President of Marketing and R&D. "Our MonTitan SSD solution is an innovative PCIe Gen5 SSD platform designed to satisfy the unique demands of datacenters today while providing flexibility and programmability to meet future evolving standards."

Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash and storage solutions, and Cigent Technology, Inc., the leader in embedded cybersecurity technology, today announced an innovative partnership program called Cigent Secure SSD Ready. This strategic partnership embeds select Phison storage devices and controllers with Cigent's built-in cybersecurity enhancements - features that Phison's storage partners can easily switch on and resell as an option to their global channel partners and customers.

"We couldn't be more excited about our exclusive partnership with Cigent to equip selected Phison products with the most secure storage solution on the market," said Sebastien Jean, CTO, Phison. "Phison OEM partners and PC OEMs now have a turnkey solution that provides unparalleled storage-based data security across the entire storage ecosystem/PC supply chain."

Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller and storage solutions, today unveiled two new PCIe Gen4x4 Enterprise Class SSDs: the EPR3750 in M.2 2280 form factor and the EPR3760 in M.2 22110 form factor. The EPR3750 and EPR3760 SSDs are backward compatible in PCIe Gen3 M.2 slots at even faster speeds while offering significant performance enhancements when matched with PCIe Gen4 chipsets. Also, the EPR3750 and EPR3760 SSDs provide a faster quality of service (QoS) command execution with Enterprise SSD firmware. Workstation and Server boot applications require consistent and predictable performance from storage. Phison's new SSDs are ideal to use as boot drives in workstations, servers, and in Network Attached Storage (NAS) and RAID environments.

Transcend, released its industrial-grade 112-layer 3D NAND SSDs designed with DRAM cache. The outstanding random speeds and endurance are ready to serve the 5G communication and AIoT markets as digital transformation continues apace. Smart infrastructures have been deployed globally, and the demands for IoT, edge computing, and industrial automation heightened. Transcend's storage solutions are expected to satisfy these critical missions.

Transcend SSDs are built with high-quality 112-layer flash memory and a DRAM cache, which temporarily stores data, shortening the data processing time and increasing random read speed. As the data can be accessed on the DRAM cache instead of the flash, the number of NAND flash being written is reduced, prolonging the lifespan of flash memory while increasing the drive endurance. The drives come with a PCIe and SATA III 6 Gb/s interface, covering various form factors including 2.5", M.2, mSATA, and half-slim types. With 3K P/E cycles and capacities of up to 4 TB, the SSDs are capable of working under an extended temperature range (-20°C~75°C). Wide-temperature (-40°C~85°C) models are available to withstand harsh industrial conditions.

MaxLinear, Inc. a leading provider of radio frequency (RF), analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for broadband, connectivity, and infrastructure markets, and Silicon Motion, a global leader in NAND flash controllers for solid state storage devices, announced today that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which MaxLinear will acquire Silicon Motion in a cash and stock transaction that values the combined company at $8 billion in enterprise value. In the merger, each American Depositary Share (ADS) of Silicon Motion, which represents four ordinary shares of Silicon Motion, will receive $93.54 in cash and 0.388 shares of MaxLinear common stock, for total per ADS consideration of $114.34 (based on MaxLinear's May 4, 2022 closing price). The strategic business combination is anticipated to drive transformational scale, create a diversified technology portfolio, significantly expand the combined company's total addressable market, and create a highly profitable cash generating semiconductor leader.

Upon completion of the acquisition, the combined company will have a highly diversified technology platform with strong positions across the broadband, connectivity, infrastructure, and storage end markets. The combination of MaxLinear's RF, analog/mixed-signal, and processing capabilities with Silicon Motion's market leading NAND flash controller technology completes a total technology stack which fully captures end-to-end platform functionality and accelerates the company's expansion into enterprise, consumer, and many other adjacent growth markets. Combined revenues are expected to be more than $2 billion annually and are supported by the technology breadth to address a total market opportunity of roughly $15 billion.

Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced its new microSD card, the Samsung PRO Endurance. Uniquely designed to meet the rigorous demands of surveillance cameras, dashboard cameras, doorbell cameras, body cameras and more, the card offers improved endurance and outstanding performance for smooth and reliable continuous capture and playback.

"From CCTV to doorbell cameras, the need for long-lasting and high-performing video surveillance solutions is continuing to increase, and the PRO Endurance has been designed to support that demand," said KyuYoung Lee, Vice President of the Memory Brand Product Biz Team at Samsung Electronics. "Both consumers and enterprise users can rest assured that our new memory card will ensure continuous recording at high resolution even under extreme conditions." Built with Samsung's highly reliable enterprise-grade NAND flash memory, the PRO Endurance card can deliver up to 16 years (140,160 hours) of continuous recording time to ensure every critical moment is captured. This means a single PRO Endurance card can last as long as up to 33 typical speed-focused cards, saving frequent replacement costs and providing greater reliability for always-on video monitoring.

For many years, TEAMGROUP has been developing high-quality products for industrial use and automation applications. In response to the growing market for 5G applications, the company this year is focusing on the new market demands of 5G infrastructure, AloT edge computing, and autonomous driving, as well as in-vehicle computing and environmental safety control applications. Today, TEAMGROUP is announcing its 745 SSD Series, which features the 5th generation BiCS NAND flash memory. It's a comprehensive industrial solution that comes with high capacities, low latencies, and high durability for the various application of industrial market.

The TEAMGROUP 745 SSD Series uses the new 112-layer 3D TLC and the latest 5th generation BiCS NAND flash memory, giving it approximately 40% more capacity and 50% better I/O performance than BiCS4 SSDs. This makes it fully suitable for the high-capacity, low-latency transmission requirements of edge computing. To meet the needs of a wide range of industrial applications, the 745 SSD Series is available in a variety of form factors with mainstream specifications, including models with SATA and PCIe Gen3x4 interfaces and capacities from 128 GB to 2 TB, offering the industry a variety of professional options. The 745 SSD Series is also equipped with SLC cache technology, which improves SSD read and write efficiency and supports high AI load for smart manufacturing and autonomous driving, while the AES 256-bit encryption prevents data security concerns and ensures safety and stability of the SSD.

Seagate Technology Holdings plc, a world leader in mass-data storage infrastructure solutions, and Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller and storage solutions, announced today plans to expand their SSD portfolio of next-gen high-performance, high-density enterprise NVMe SSDs. The new SSDs will help enterprises lower total cost ownership (TCO) through increased storage density, lower power consumption, and higher performance. The companies also announced that they have entered a long-term partnership that will strengthen the development cycle and distribution of enterprise-class SSDs.

Seagate and Phison have collaborated on Seagate's mainstream SATA SSD products since 2017. That close cooperation has continued through the company's performance-leading line of FireCuda consumer gaming NVMe PCIe Gen4 x4 SSDs and the world's first purpose-built NAS NVMe SSDs. The partnership will now focus on meeting the evolving global enterprise demand for higher density, faster, and smarter storage infrastructure needs that complement HDD storage to enable comprehensive enterprise applications such as hyperscale data center, high-performance computing and AI.

Kioxia Corporation, the world leader in memory solutions, today held a groundbreaking ceremony for its state-of-the-art semiconductor fabrication facility (Fab2) at its Kitakami Plant in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. Utilizing AI-based cutting-edge manufacturing, the new facility will contribute towards possible expansion of production of its proprietary 3D flash memory BiCS FLASH at the Kitakami Plant. Construction of the Fab2 facility is scheduled to be completed in 2023. The Fab2 facility will have an earthquake-absorbing structure and environmentally friendly design that utilizes advanced energy saving manufacturing equipment and renewable energy sources. In addition, an administration building will be constructed to accommodate the control management and technical departments in response to the increased staff.

"As a leader in memory, this Fab2 facility will become Kioxia's key manufacturing hub to produce our memory products at scale. We are planning to introduce automated in-facility transfers and advanced production control to make Fab2 a truly world-class smart fabrication facility," said Nobuo Hayasaka, President and CEO, Kioxia. "Fab2 will be able to intelligently coordinate and optimize its production with Fab1 at Kitakami Plant as well as our fabs in the Yokkaichi Plant, enabling the company to seize opportunities in the growing memory market in a timely manner." Under its mission of uplifting the world with memory, Kioxia is focused on developing initiatives to strengthen the competitiveness of its memory and SSD business, which it has developed over the past 35 years since inventing NAND flash memory in 1987. Kioxia remains committed to creating consistent and sustainable growth through timely capital investments that meet growing market demand.

Today SK hynix and Solidigm jointly introduced their first collaborative product, a new enterprise solid-state drive (eSSD), P5530. This limited release product highlights the emerging partnership between SK hynix and Solidigm, which formed three months ago when SK hynix acquired Intel's NAND and SSD business. The P5530 combines SK hynix's 128-layer 4D NAND flash with Solidigm's SSD controller and firmware supporting a PCIe Gen 4 interface. The product is offered in 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacity options. SK hynix and Solidigm worked together to optimize performance with specific data center use cases and targeted deployments in mind.

Since the launch of Solidigm, the companies have partnered to forge a forward-moving strategy and co-develop products while reinforcing common values across the companies. Through the ongoing partnership and collaboration with Solidigm, SK hynix expects to enhance its NAND flash business competitiveness to the same extent as its DRAM business.

"With in-time demonstration of the collaborative product based on the combined competence of SK hynix and Solidigm, we aim to not only enhance our NAND flash business competitiveness but also speed up our "Inside America" strategy," said Kevin (Jongwon) Noh, President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at SK hynix. "SK hynix and Solidigm will continue to partner in order to optimize both companies' operations to create greater synergies."

Silicon Power (SP) releases its newest PCIe 3.0 SSD, the UD80, featuring storage capacities up to 2 TB with 3D NAND flash technology. The UD80 strikes a perfect harmony between cost and performance to breathe new life into your system without burning a hole in your pocket. Designed for creators that need more than just a jolt of inspiration, the UD80 provides exceptional value and a performance boost with a PCIe Gen 3 x4 interface - a boost that leaves SATA III SSDs behind in the dust.

The UD80 utilizes the speed capabilities of PCIe 3.0 with the efficiency of NVMe and Host Memory Buffer (HMB) technology. Let your creative juices flow with rapid read and write speeds up to 3,400 MB/s and 3,000 MB/s, respectively. At the same time, experience seamless productivity via the higher performance and lower latency that's achieved by NVMe 1.4 and HMB technology.

China is reacting to new outbreaks of the Omicron variant of the Coronavirus with partial lockdowns. This could further delay the availability of laptops with 12th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA's Ti graphics cards, which debuted at the beginning of the year. The first factories have already been closed in Suzhou in the east of the country. Supply chain and logistics bottlenecks, a shortage of certain chip types and price increases are already on the horizon.

What do the MP3 players of the 1990s and today's smartphones have in common? Neither would exist were it not for NAND flash memory, an innovation whose influence has reverberated throughout the decades. KIOXIA America, Inc. today announced that it has reached a new milestone - 2022 marks the 35th anniversary of the company's invention of NAND flash memory.

Back in 1987, it would have been hard to imagine all of the ways that this then brand-new technology would impact the world. NAND flash memory has ushered in entire new technological eras, and obsoleted technologies and products that had been in use for years - changing our lives in countless ways. Since starting at zero 35 years ago, the NAND flash market has grown to $70B. In terms of die density, flash memory has grown from 4 Mb to 1.33 Tb - a 333,000x increase. To put this exponential growth in perspective, in the 1990s, the largest available density flash memory could hold 1/8 of a photo. Flash forward to today, where the largest available die density is a whopping 1.33 Tb - and capable of storing 39,000 photos.

TechPowerUp partnered with NAND flash pioneer KIOXIA to give you a chance to bring home one of three KIOXIA Exceria series SSDs. Based on the company's BiCS 3D NAND flash technology, the Exceria series spans various client SSD form-factors, including M.2 NVMe and 2.5-inch SATA. The brand also extends to the company's various consumer flash products, including portable SSDs, USB flash drives, and memory cards. Up for grabs in the TechPowerUp Giveaway were a 2 TB Exceria Plus G2 NVMe SSD, a 1 TB Exceria NVMe SSD, and a 960 GB Exceria SATA 2.5-inch SSD. The results are in, and we have the winners!

• Martin from Malta, wins the 2 TB Exceria Plus G2 NVMe SSD
• Pari from New Zealand, wins the 1 TB Exceria NVMe SSD
• Paul from the United Kingdom, wins the 960 GB Exceria SATA 2.5-inch SSD

A huge Congratulations to you three! TechPowerUp and KIOXIA will return with more such interesting giveaways.

The all-new XPOWER XS70 PCIe 4.0 SSD from Silicon Power (SP) is about to take gaming to new highs with its thrilling performance and unique design that will give hardcore gamers the boost to take on opponents for hours on end.

With a standard data transfer rate that's 2x faster than the 3.0 version, the XS70 PCIe Gen4 x4 with 3D NAND flash memory and NVMe 1.4 support is exactly what serious gamers need to crush the competition. Mind-blowing continuous read and write speeds up to 7,300 MB/s and 6,800 MB/s, respectively, enable the XS70 to push the limits of what an SSD can do so you can break new records.