Phison, a manufacturer of SSD controllers, showcased the performance of its E26 controller using PCI Express 5.0 at the Flash Memory Summit 2022. The test system featured other innovations, including a Ryzen 7700 processor and a Micron 232-layer 3D NOR.
First, the demo’s performance at 10 GB/s sequential read/write according to a CrystalDiskMark snapshot isn’t that impressive. Phison demonstrated the ability to display more than 12GB/s in a demo at May’s end; it should reach 13.5GB/s at its peak. This comes (via Tom’s Hardware).
Ryzen 7000 in “the wild”.
It’s interesting to see what’s happening around it, as Tom’s Hardware reports that the system was outfitted with a CPU from AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7000 Series. The new Zen 4 architecture processor should have 6 cores, 12 threads, and be identified 100-000000593-20_Y. The same identifier was used in the technical example that was discovered in a controversial CPU benchmark databank. This is the pre-production chip for the Ryzen 5 7600X.
Micron’s NAND 232 layer requires fine-tuning
The third innovation in the group is 3D NAND, which was used on the SSD prototype. Micron’s new 232 layer 3D NAND should be used here. It has just entered mass production. The demo result is surprising weak considering that this NAND is supposed to be faster than the 176-layer NAND from the same manufacturer. Phison said that the combination is still being tested and optimized. A cooler is required for maximum performance. This was not the case with the demo SSD in M.22280 format.
September is the start of the PCIe 5.0 SSD era
The first PCIe 5.0 consumer SSDs with the Phison E26 will be available in September along with AMD’s new desktop platform. AMD already offered solutions from different manufacturers. These solutions simultaneously support switching to the new AM5 platform and PCIe5.0.
