Silicon Motion's product manager, Liu Yaoren, has predicted that the first notebook models to feature PCIe 5.0 SSD storage will hit retail around late 2024. This information was disclosed during the company's key note presentation at 2023's Flash Memory Summit Conference and Exhibition, but only picked up on by media outlets in recent days. The American-Taiwanese company showcased their SM2508 controller on the showroom floor—this is advertised as their answer to Phison's E26. The upcoming Silicon Motion-designed controller "promises to deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 14 GB/s. Random performance is rated at 2.5 million IOPS read and 2.4 million IOPS write." NAND flash speeds of up to 3600 MT/s provide some future proofing.

ITHome has reported on further technical details released by Huirong Technology/Silicon Motion—their flagship SM2508 IC also uses the more advanced TSMC 6 nm process technology, (and) has a built-in dual-core Cortex R8 processor." The memory controller's operational TDP is rated at around 3.5 W—the firm believes that their product shows the "ultimate potential of PCIe Gen 5 performance" with ultra-low power consumption, although no thermal figures were disclosed to attendees. MSI premiered its PCIe Gen 5 SSD compatible laptop series earlier this year, but aftermarket parts with sizable heatsinks are proving to be a tricky fit.