Silicon Motion Technology Corporation ("Silicon Motion"), a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid state storage devices, today introduced its UFS (Universal Flash Storage) 4.0 controller, the SM2756, as the flagship of the industry's broadest merchant portfolio of UFS controller solutions for the growing requirements of AI-powered smartphones as well as other high-performance applications including automotive and edge computing. The company also added a new, second generation SM2753 UFS 3.1 controller to broaden its portfolio of controllers now supporting UFS 4.0 to UFS 2.2 standards. Silicon Motion's UFS portfolio delivers high-performance and low power embedded storage for flagship to mainstream and value mobile and computing devices, supporting the broadest range of NAND flash, including next-generation high speed 3D TLC and QLC NAND.

The new SM2756 UFS 4.0 controller solution is the world's most advanced controller, built on leading 6 nm EUV technology and using MIPI M-PHY low-power architecture, providing the right balance of high performance and power efficiency to enable the all day computing needs of today's premium and AI mobile devices. The SM2756 achieves sequential read performance exceeding 4,300 MB/s and sequential write speeds of over 4,000 MB/s and supports the broadest range of 3D TLC and QLC NAND flash with densities of up to 2 TB.

According to TPU's SSD database, the Microsoft Z1000 M.2 22110 form factor solid-state drive launched back in 2020—last week, well-known hardware tipster, yuuki_ans, leaked a set of photos and specifications. Their March 7 social media post showcases close-ups of a potential enterprise product—sporting a CNEX Labs CNX-2670AA-CB2T controller, Toshiba BiCS4 96-layer eTLC NAND flash dies and 1 GB Micron MT40A1G8SA-075:E DDR4 RAM cache. The mysterious storage device appears to be an engineering sample (PV1.1)—an attached label lists a possible manufacturing date of May 18, 2020, but its part number and serial code are redacted in yuuki's set of photos. PCIe specifications are not disclosed, but experts reckon that a 4.0 standard is present here (given the prototype's age).

The long form factor and presence of a CNEX Labs controller suggest that Microsoft has readied a 960 GB capacity model for usage in data servers. Unoccupied spaces on the board provide evidence of different configurations. Extra BGA mounting points could introduce another DRAM chip, and there is enough room for additional capacitors—via solder pads on both sides of the Z1000's PCB. It is speculated that 2 TB and 4 TB variants exist alongside the leaked 960 GB example—a "broad portfolio" of finalized Z1000 products could be in service right now, but the wider public is unlikely to see these items outside of Microsoft facilities.

Sabrent today announced its latest flagship M.2 NVMe SSD series, the Rocket 5. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor, the Sabrent Rocket 5 is sold as a bare drive, with an included fan-heatsink that you install if needed. This cooler comes with a tiny fins-stack, two copper heat pipes, and a 20 mm fan. At the heart of the drive is the new Phison PS5026-E26 Max14um controller, paired with Micron B58R 232-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory, and LPDDR4 based DRAM cache. The drive comes in 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB capacity variants.

The company didn't put out capacity-specific performance or endurance numbers, but mentioned sequential read speeds of up to 14 GB/s, as is characteristic of the Max14um controller variant; up to 12 GB/s sequential write speeds, up to 1.55 million IOPS 4K random reads, with up to 1.8 million IOPS 4K random writes. The Rocket 5 replaces the Rocket 4 Plus as Sabrent's flagship SSD. The 4 TB variant is listed at $730, the 2 TB variant at $340, and the 1 TB variant at $190.

Transcend, a premier manufacturer of embedded memory products and storage solutions, is proud to announce the launch of the all-new MTS570P, a Power Loss Protection (PLP) SSD aimed at enhancing storage reliability for embedded systems. Engineered with a compact form factor without compromising on performance, it is an ideal solution for edge servers, IoV systems, network switches, POS machines, and various other types of edge devices.

Power Loss Protection (PLP) stands as a critical feature in modern embedded systems, particularly when used in rugged environments. Its main purpose is to safeguard data integrity during unstable power supply or unexpected power loss/failure, ultimately enhancing overall system reliability and safety by providing a stable and secure storage solution.

Kioxia Corporation and Western Digital Corporation announced today that their joint venture manufacturing facilities at Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants have been approved to receive an up to 150 billion yen subsidy, including facilities that will produce its latest generation of 3D flash memory based on the innovative wafer bonding technology and future generation advanced nodes. The subsidy will be granted under a designated government program aimed at facilitating corporate investment in cutting-edge semiconductor production facilities and securing stable production of semiconductors in Japan. This marks the second time that Kioxia's and Western Digital's joint venture manufacturing facilities are receiving this subsidy from the Japanese government. Previously, the joint venture manufacturing facility at Yokkaichi was approved to receive up to 92.9 billion yen subsidy from the Japanese government in 2022.

Leveraging an over 20-year joint venture partnership, Kioxia and Western Digital will continue to enhance the development and production capabilities of cutting-edge flash memory at the Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants in Japan. In addition, the two companies will contribute to the development of semiconductor-related industries and talent.

Worldwide semiconductor revenue in 2023 totaled $533 billion, a decrease of 11.1% from 2022, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc.

"While the cyclicality in the semiconductor industry was present again in 2023, the market suffered a difficult year with memory revenue recording one of its worst declines in history," said Alan Priestley, VP Analyst at Gartner. "The underperforming market also negatively impacted several semiconductor vendors. Only 9 of the top 25 semiconductor vendors posted revenue growth in 2023, with 10 experiencing double-digit declines."

The combined semiconductor revenue of the top 25 semiconductor vendors declined 14.1% in 2023, accounting for 74.4% of the market, down from 77.2% in 2022.

Patriot Memory brought their latest ware to the 2024 International CES that use recent advancements in tech on both the SSD and memory fronts. On the SSD front, this year sees 14 GB/s capable PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs thanks to Phison's E26 Max14um controller; and a new crop of USB4 portable SSDs; while the memory front sees DDR5 speeds go far north of DDR5-6000, thanks to on-module CKDs. Patriot showed us examples of each.

First up, there's the Patriot Viper PV573 Gen 5 NVMe SSD. This thing comes in capacities of up to 4 TB, and combines a Phison E26 Max14um controller with Micron's latest B58R TLC NAND flash chips that offer 2400 MT/s per flash channel. The controller also gets some incremental thermal optimizations, which means the cooling solution for the PV573 is a 16.5 mm-tall fan-heatsink. The drive offers up to 14 GB/s sequential reads, with up to 12 GB/s sequential writes. There's also a slightly de-rated version of this drive, the Viper PV553, which has the same combination of controller and NAND flash, but with transfer speeds of up to 12.4 GB/s reads, with up to 11.8 GB/s writes.

Apple has been experimenting with Large Language Models (LLMs) that power most of today's AI applications. The company wants these LLMs to serve the users best and deliver them efficiently, which is a difficult task as they require a lot of resources, including compute and memory. Traditionally, LLMs have required AI accelerators in combination with large DRAM capacity to store model weights. However, Apple has published a paper that aims to bring LLMs to devices with limited memory capacity. By storing LLMs on NAND flash memory (regular storage), the method involves constructing an inference cost model that harmonizes with the flash memory behavior, guiding optimization in two critical areas: reducing the volume of data transferred from flash and reading data in larger, more contiguous chunks. Instead of storing the model weights on DRAM, Apple wants to utilize flash memory to store weights and only pull them on-demand to DRAM once it is needed.

Two principal techniques are introduced within this flash memory-informed framework: "windowing" and "row-column bundling." These methods collectively enable running models up to twice the size of the available DRAM, with a 4-5x and 20-25x increase in inference speed compared to native loading approaches on CPU and GPU, respectively. Integrating sparsity awareness, context-adaptive loading, and a hardware-oriented design pave the way for practical inference of LLMs on devices with limited memory, such as SoCs with 8/16/32 GB of available DRAM. Especially with DRAM prices outweighing NAND Flash, setups such as smartphone configurations could easily store and inference LLMs with multi-billion parameters, even if the DRAM available isn't sufficient. For a more technical deep dive, read the paper on arXiv here.

Phison Electronics Corp., a global leader in NAND flash controller and storage solutions, today announced the company's predictions for 2024 trends in NAND flash infrastructure deployment. The company predicts that rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies will continue apace, with PCIe 5.0-based infrastructure providing high-performance, sustainable support for AI workload consistency as adoption rapidly expands. PCIe 5.0 NAND flash solutions will be at the core of a well-balanced hardware ecosystem, with private AI deployments such as on-premise large language models (LLMs) driving significant growth in both everyday AI and the infrastructure required to support it.

"We are moving past initial excitement over AI toward wider everyday deployment of the technology. In these configurations, high-quality AI output must be achieved by infrastructure designed to be secure, while also being affordable. The organizations that leverage AI to boost productivity will be incredibly successful," said Sebastien Jean, CTO, Phison US. "Building on the widespread proliferation of AI applications, infrastructure providers will be responsible for making certain that AI models do not run up against the limitations of memory - and NAND flash will become central to how we configure data center architectures to support today's developing AI market while laying the foundation for success in our fast-evolving digital future."

KIOXIA today released the maximum possible storage capacity for the microSDXC standard of 2 TB, with the release of the Exceria Plus G2 microSDXC 2 TB model. It is also the highest data storage density among any storage device by physical volume. To pull this off, KIOXIA innovated a NAND flash device that stacks sixteen 1 terabit (128 GB) layers, with a Z-height for the package being just 0.8 mm. The card meets UHS Class 3. application class A1, and video class V30, which means an assured write speed of at least 30 MB/s. The company claims maximum sequential read speeds of 100 MB/s, with 90 MB/s maximum write speeds. KIOXIA has initially released the card in its home market of Japan, and hopes to release it in other markets soon.

Chinese memory maker Yangtze Memory Technology Corp (YMTC) is allegedly preparing its next-generation Xtacking 4.0 3D NAND flash architecture for next-generation memory chips. According to the documentation obtained by Tom's Hardware, YMTC has developed two SKUs based on the upgraded Xtacking 4.0: X4-9060, a 128-layer three-bit-per-cell (TLC) 3D NAND, and the X4-9070, a 232-layer TLC 3D NAND. By using string stacking on both of these SKUs, YMTC plans to make the 3D NAND work by incorporating arrays with 64 and 116 active layers stacked on top of each other. This way, the export regulation rules from the US government are met, and the company can use the tools that are not under the sanction list.

While YMTC has yet to fully disclose the specific advantages of the Xtacking 4.0 technology, the industry anticipates significant enhancements in data transfer speeds and storage density. These improvements are expected to stem from increased plane counts for optimized parallel processing, refined bit/word line configurations to minimize latency, and the development of modified chip variants to boost production yields. When YMTC announced Xtacking 3.0, the company offered 128-layer TLC and 232-layer four-bit-per-cell (QLC) variants and was the first company to achieve 200+ layer count in the 3D NAND space. The Xtacking 3.0 architecture incorporates string stacking and hybrid bonding techniques and uses a mature process node for the chip's CMOS underlayer. We have to wait for the final Xtacking 4.0 details when YMTC's officially launches the SKUs.

Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC), China's biggest NAND flash memory manufacturer, has successfully raised billions of US Dollars in new capital to adapt to challenging US restrictions. According to the report from Financial Times, YMTC, which was added to a trade blacklist in December and barred from procuring US equipment to manufacture chips, exceeded its funding target. However, the exact amount remains undisclosed. The capital increase became necessary due to YMTC's substantial spending on finding alternative equipment and developing new components and core chipmaking tools. This financing round was oversubscribed by domestic investors, reflecting support for YMTC amid tightening US restrictions.

Last year, YMTC managed to raise 50 billion Chinese Yuan or about 7 billion US Dollars for equipment. Spending it all on the supply chain, the company is now looking to bolster its offerings with additional equipment for its memory facilities. One of the investors in the funding rally for YMTC has made a statement for Finanical Times: "If Chinese companies have equipment that can be used, [YMTC] will use it. If not, it will see if countries other than the US can sell to it. If that doesn't work, YMTC will develop it together with the supplier." This statement indicates that the company is looking into several options, where one is simply developing its custom machinery with the suppliers.

If you've been putting off purchasing that shiny new SSD, you might want to consider doing it before the end of the year, especially if you've been eyeing a model from Samsung, as the company will reportedly be increasing the pricing of its NAND flash starting now. NAND flash might have hit rock bottom, with all major manufacturers except possibly YMTC having cut production to try to push up pricing, but so far, nothing appears to have worked. Despite this, reports coming out of Taiwan's UDN News via TrendForce are suggesting that Samsung is getting ready to hike the price of its NAND flash products by 20 percent per quarter until the middle of 2024.

Admittedly this only gives Samsung about two and a half quarters to increase the pricing, but that's potentially three increases of 20 percent per increase. Samsung has reportedly already increased its NAND wafer prices by 10 to 20 percent this quarter, which according to TrendForce has had a knock on effect on enterprise SSD pricing, which has increased by five to 10 percent already. TrendForce is forecasting a consumer SSD price increase of eight to 13 percent before the end of the year, which might not seem like much, but if the pricing increases for another couple of quarters, we could be looking at 30 to 40 percent more expensive SSDs in the not too distant future. As such, it's going to be worth keeping an eye on SSD pricing, as it's likely that Samsung's competitors will follow suit and increase their NAND pricing as well, which will affect the broader market.

According to sources close to Nikkei, the merger discussions between Western Digital and Kioxia has been terminated. Western Digital notified Kioxia about scrapping the possible transaction, citing the failure to obtain approval from SK Hynix, a significant shareholder of Kioxia, and disagreements over merger terms with Bain Capital, Kioxia's main shareholder. Western Digital and Kioxia, holding the fourth and second positions in the global NAND flash memory market, respectively, planned to join their NAND operations under one roof to create the world's largest maker of NAND memory and potentially enhance their competitive standing and profitability.

The merger was seen as a strategic move to rival Samsung's market dominance by leveraging the companies' combined resources and capabilities, and the plan was to happen as soon as the end of this month. However, the merger faced substantial opposition from SK Hynix, the world's third-largest NAND supplier with a 17.8% market share. Having invested more than $2.6 billion in a consortium led by Bain Capital that previously acquired Kioxia in 2018, SK Hynix expressed concerns that the proposed merger would adversely impact its market position and future collaboration opportunities with Kioxia. This opposition proved to be a pivotal obstacle, preventing the realization of the merger.

According to Kyodo News, Japanese chip manufacturer Kioxia and its U.S. counterpart Western Digital are reportedly on the verge of finalizing a merger agreement, aiming to create the world's largest producer of memory chips. The merger plan involves establishing a holding company to consolidate their operations for producing NAND flash memory chips, with the announcement reportedly coming this month. The merged entity is expected to be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the United States. As the global semiconductor market contends with competitive pressures and fluctuating demand, the merger is seen as a strategic move to enhance the combined market position of both companies.

Western Digital shareholders are anticipated to hold a majority stake in the new entity, with Kioxia's shareholders, including Toshiba Corporation, owning the remaining stake. The move is poised to give the newly formed company a combined market share of 35.4 percent in NAND memory chips as of March, surpassing South Korea's Samsung, the current leader, with 34.3 percent. However, the merger's ultimate approval hinges on regulators' decisions, including those in China, as semiconductors have become increasingly integral to global economic security. Major Japanese banks, including MUFG Bank and the state-backed Development Bank of Japan, are contemplating loans of up to approximately 1.9 trillion yen (about $12.7 billion) to facilitate the merger.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced memory technology, today held its annual Memory Tech Day, showcasing industry-first innovations and new memory products to accelerate technological advancements across future applications—including the cloud, edge devices and automotive vehicles.

Attended by about 600 customers, partners and industry experts, the event served as a platform for Samsung executives to expand on the company's vision for "Memory Reimagined," covering long-term plans to continue its memory technology leadership, outlook on market trends and sustainability goals. The company also presented new product innovations such as the HBM3E Shinebolt, LPDDR5X CAMM2 and Detachable AutoSSD.

The drawn out merger talks between Kioxia and Western Digital's memory and NAND flash manufacturing businesses appears to have hit an unexpected bump on the road, in the shape of SK Hynix according to the Nikkei. As it happens, SK Hynix holds an indirect stake in Kioxia and as such, they need to approve the merger for it to be able to happen. Today, SK Hynix is the second biggest manufacturer of NAND flash, somewhat behind Samsung, but if the Kioxia WD merger were to take place, SK Hynix would be pushed into a third place in the market, which wouldn't benefit the company.

As such, SK Hynix is trying to push for a rather odd option for Kioxia, where SK Hynix wants Japanese SoftBank—who owns among other things, Arm—to step in as a partner with Kioxia. However, what SK Hynix seems to have forgotten is that WD's memory chips are made in the same fab as Kioxia's and it's highly unlikely that WD would be keen on seeing this last minute proposal by SK Hynix play out. The Kioxia WD merger would result in a new company where Kioxia would own 63 percent and WD 37 percent, based on current assets. However, WD is meant to add further capital to the merger, so it can get a 50.1 percent stake in the final company for its shareholders, with Kioxia ending up with 49.9 percent.

Swissbit, a leading manufacturer of industrial-grade flash memory solutions, today announced the release of its new product line of SATA SSDs. The series X-73, X-75 and X-78 are powered by cutting-edge industrial 112-layer 3D NAND technology, bringing unprecedented reliability and extended lifespan to the world's most crucial networks. The latest portfolio is built with Swissbit's dedication to quality and innovation. The new portfolio not only offers reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) thanks to its extended product life cycle, but also comes with powersafe SSDs - Swissbit's industry-leading power loss protection feature.

The expanded SSD product line includes M.2 2242, M.2 2280, Slim SATA MO-297, and 2.5" form factors, and offers a wide capacity range from 40 GB up to 1.92 TB. With an industry-leading 100k P/E cycles, the high endurance versions in pSLC mode are aimed at addressing the increasing market demand for durable and reliable data storage solutions.

Silicon Power (SP) is thrilled to announce its inaugural participation at the renowned Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) from October 6-8. Together with Mwave and Umart, the company's distributors in Australia, SP will offer exclusive promotions to gaming enthusiasts. The company will also showcase its cutting-edge gaming solutions, including the debut of its groundbreaking product, the XPOWER XS80 PCIe Gen 5 SSD. Taking place at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), PAX provides the perfect backdrop for SP to unveil its latest innovation, further solidifying the brand's commitment to delivering high-performance storage solutions for gamers.

Game-Changing Gen 5 Performance with the XS80
The XS80 offers exceptional gaming performance with the latest PCIe Gen 5 technology, NVMe 2.0 support, and 232-layer 3D NAND flash, delivering twice the data transfer rate of Gen 4 and four times that of Gen 3.

Solidigm today announced the D7-5810, an enterprise SSD for extremely intensity write workloads. Such a drive would be capable of write endurance in the neighborhood of 50 DWPD. For reference, the company's D7-P5620, a write-centric/mixed workload drive for data-logging, and AI ingest/preparation, offers around 3 DWPD of endurance, depending on the variant; and the read-intensive drive meant for CDNs, the D5-P5336, offers around 0.5 DWPD. Use cases for the new D7-P5810 include high performance caching for flash arrays dealing with "cooler" data; high-frequency trading, and HPC.

Solidigm D7-P5810 uses SK hynix 144-layer 3D NAND flash that's made to operate in a pure SLC configuration. The drive comes in 800 GB and 1.6 TB capacities, and offers 50 DWPD over an endurance period of 5 years (4K random writes). More specifically, both models offer 73 PBW (petabytes written) of endurance. The drive comes in enterprise-relevant 15 mm-thick U.2 form-factor, with PCIe Gen 4 x4 interface, with NVMe 1.3c and NVMe MI 1.1 protocols.

This past weekend, Micron broke ground on what will be a new semiconductor assembly plant in Gujarat, India. The new facility is said to cover almost 0.4 square kilometres of land or 93 acres, on which phase one will include a 46.5 thousand square metre clean room. The first phase of the project is said to be built by Tata Projects and it's expected to start operating as early as the end of 2024, which seems somewhat optimistic considering how long it can take to build clean rooms of this size in other countries that have much more experience in building such facilities.

Micron is said to be investing a total of US$2.7 billion at the facility, although phase one has a budget of US$825 million as a first step. The full project is said to take five years to complete and is expected to bring some 5,000 direct jobs at the Micron plant. The plant will be a first-of-its-kind in India and Micron will be using it to assemble DRAM and NAND flash. Some of the investment is coming from the Indian government, but the reports don't mention how big of a share the government has contributed.

It appears that Silicon Motion is ready to start competing with Phison in the PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD controller market, as the company has shown a new controller at the Flash Memory Summit 2023 which should give Phison a run for its money. The SM2508 as the controller is called is set to be the most power efficient PCIe 5.0 NVMe controller to date, with a power consumption of 3.5 W, which is in line with most PCIe 4.0 SSD controllers. This still means that a decent heatsink will be needed, but not active cooling or massive heatsinks that we've seen on the current crop of PCIe 5.0 drives based on Phison's E26 controller.

Silicon Motion also appears to have the Phison E26 beat, in terms of performance, as the SM2508 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. To get the most out of the SM2508 2400 MT/s or faster NAND flash is going to be needed to deliver the claimed performance figures though, but according to Anandtech, the SM2508 is future proofed by supporting NAND flash speeds of up to 3600 MT/s, so we might see faster drives based on the controller once faster NAND appears, such as SK Hynix new 321-layer NAND, which is scheduled for a 2025 introduction. The SM2508 on the other hand is said to be launching at the end of this year or early 2024.

NEO Semiconductor, a leading developer of innovative technologies for 3D NAND flash and DRAM memory, today announced its participation at Flash Memory Summit 2023, taking place in person in Santa Clara, California, on August 8-10. CEO, Andy Hsu, will deliver a keynote address titled "New Architectures which will Drive Future 3D NAND and 3D DRAM Solutions" on August 9th at 11:40 a.m. Pacific Time.

Earlier this year, Neo Semiconductor announced the launch of its ground-breaking technology, 3D X-DRAM. This development is the world's first 3D NAND-like DRAM cell array that is targeted to solve DRAM's capacity bottleneck and replace the entire 2D DRAM market. 3D X-DRAM can be manufactured using the existing 3D NAND flash memory process with minor changes, significantly reducing the time and cost spent developing a new 3D process. During the keynote, Mr. Hsu will reveal the 3D X-DRAM process flow and technical details.

In the world of modern embedded computing, motherboards and systems are equipped with numerous M.2 and Mini-PCI Express sockets. These sockets provide ideal homes for networking communication adapters and solid-state drives (SSDs), including NVMe-compatible SSDs. With an abundance of sockets, embedded systems now have unparalleled connectivity and storage options.

Cervoz recognizes this need and introduces a new industrial SSD perfectly suited for these boards and systems: the M.2 2242 PCIe Gen 3 x 2 (B+M Key) SSD, T421. This SSD is designed specifically for embedded motherboards and systems, making it a perfect fit for industrial applications ranging from retail and gaming solutions to embedded computing devices.

Microsoft unveiled a variant of its affordable Xbox Series S game console, which now comes in a carbon black trim. The console comes with 1 TB of SSD storage, and Microsoft is pricing it at $349, a $50 premium over the regular Xbox Series S with 512 GB storage. With NAND flash prices on a downward trend, Microsoft is looking to solve the problem of local storage for its Series S console, by doubling the capacity of local storage. The console also includes a matching black controller. The new 1 TB carbon black Xbox Series S is expected to be available from September 1, 2023.A video presentation by Microsoft follows.