As 5G, AI and new PC architectures become more common across every industry -there’s an increasing demand for high-speed storage that can keep pace with faster and more efficient clock cycles. Whether used in desktop PCs, laptops, gaming consoles, cloud servers or mobile devices, modern SSDs must deliver unprecedented levels of bandwidth to feed these hungry platforms.
This is why Phison, a leader in NAND flash solutions, is excited to introduce its first PCIe Gen5 SSD controller—the P5026-E26. The E26 was designed for high-performance PCs and enterprise applications alike. Unlike previous Phison controllers, the E26 was designed from the ground up as a dual-purpose solution making it overbuilt for standard consumer applications but just right for enthusiasts and enterprise customers that demand more than the status quo.
Fulfilling the promise of Gen5 performance
In May 2022, Phison tested the E26 PCIe Gen5 SSD controller, using an ASUS ROG X670E HERO motherboard running an AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU prototype. The results were extremely encouraging—with a sequential read speed of about 12.5 GB/s and a sequential write speed of 10 GB/s. When it comes to random performance, the E26 showed vast improvement over previous generations with 1.5 million 4K read IOPS and up to 2 million write IOPS.
Those tests show that the Phison E26 is set to offer almost 2x the performance for both sequential and random reads and writes over the company’s Gen4 flagship SSD using the same spec M.2 form factor and power limitations.
One area where these ultra-fast SSD speeds will make an enormous difference is in gaming load times when used in combination with the Microsoft DirectStorage API. The first game to take advantage of those improvements will be Forspoken, developed by Luminous Productions and is currently set for a January 2023 release.
Until gamers can leverage DirectStorage, however, the E26 SSD controller’s high sequential transfer speeds are still going to be beneficial in use cases such as large video file transfers and professional applications where data manipulation takes priority over CPU-bound processing. .
Built with advanced components for future-proof performance
Phison developed the E26 to meet not only today’s high-performance needs but to also enable future technologies that rely on streaming workloads instead of bursty workloads that currently dominate the software sphere. As this changeover occurs over the coming years and developers move to streaming workloads, the E26 provides the best-in-class performance for your existing and future software requirements seem seamless as the E26 provides both the necessary snappy response and bandwidth to power through diverse workloads.
The E26 is built on a 12nm process node and can support both TLC and QLC NAND flash memory with data transfer speeds of up to 2400 MT/s. The controller uses Arm Cortex-R5 cores that work together with Phison’s specialized accelerators from its CoXProcessor 2.0 family. The company’s processor IP is based on a foundation of Arm cores to achieve the optimal balance of high performance and low power requirements for storage applications.
Phison’s unique implementation of CoXProcessors has made it possible for the company’s SSD controllers to offer competitive levels of performance and low-power consumption. With hardened macros, the controller can offload common, repetitive firmware code at wire speeds—which helps accelerate data paths, simplify firmware and allow for faster transitions to smaller process nodes.
The E26 SSD controller can work with all current and future types of 3D NAND memory that features ONFI 5.X and Toggle 5.X interfaces at data transfer speeds of up to 2400 MT/s. Because the controller is targeted to both client and enterprise customers, it also supports PCIe Dual Port connectivity for U.3 SSDs, single root input/output virtualization (SR-IOV) and zoned namespaces (ZNS) when enabled as a true solution for datacenters and enterprise enviroments.
The PS5026-E26 is also the first new controller to ship with Phison’s innovative I/O+ Technology that amplifies the solutions ability to performance at high levels under severe sustained workloads that easily bring competitor’s consumer SSDs to their knees.
Phison, AMD and Micron team up to usher in the era of Gen5
Announced at Computex 2022, Phison has teamed up with AMD and Micron to collaborate on and develop a cooperative PCIe Gen5 ecosystem of compatible products and solutions for system users. The collaboration further strengthens the three companies’ product designs and commitment to bringing a seamless transition from PCIe Gen4 to Gen5.
SSDs based on the E26 controller should enter the market later this year, once AMD’s AM5 platform and Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs enter the market.
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