Phison has announced that it will be shipping its next-gen E26 controller for PCIe Gen 5.0 SSDs in the latter half of 2022. The SSDs will be compatible with next-gen PCIe 5.0 platforms including the Intel Alder Lake CPU series which launches in November.
Phison's PCIe Gen 5.0 Ready SSDs With E26 Controller Start Shipping In 2022
PCIe 5.0 is slated to increase bandwidth compared to the previous PCIe 4.0 generation. In fact, PCIe 5.0 doubles the bandwidth speeds. And storage solutions, such as SSDs, are required to help to increase speeds as high as 7,000 megabytes per second, if not higher. Phison recognizes the need for fast storage writing speeds while also focusing on bandwidth levels.
A number of today’s best performing, PCIe Gen 4 solid state drives are built around Phison’s E18 controller. [...W]hen the AMD Ryzen 3000 series debuted, a number of SSD providers also launched Phison PS5016-E16 based drives alongside the processors to highlight some of the benefits of the platform's PCI Express Gen 4 bandwidth.
Phison is set to create its first PCIe 5.0 platform in its E26 series. The company has not released specifications as of yet, but it is speculated that with what the media has heard about the PCIe 5.0 speeds, it is expected to be much faster than the previous PCIe 4.0 solution.
"While PCIe Gen4 SSD shipments are still ramping up, there are many server and storage customers who will want to transition to PCIe Gen5 as soon as that technology is available. By helping to enable an ecosystem, Phison’s customizable E26 SSD is at the forefront of PCIe Gen5 introductions and will facilitate data center customers looking to benefit from the technology's increased performance."
—Jeff Janukowicz, Research Vice President at IDC
With consumers not close to reaching the true current speeds of PCIe 4.0 SSDs, it is expected that businesses will probably thrive more in this particular market. DirectStorage API from Microsoft allows developers of games to reach faster speeds than in previous years utilizing PCIe 4.0.
Once we see the true power of Intel's Alder Lake and PCIe 5.0 technology along it, Phison will be ready to set the stage to offer their solutions for business and consumer client SATA SSD storage capabilities. In fact, the company has already created an E26 PCIe 5.0 test chip, created on a twelve-nanometer nodule. They expect to have their E26 controller-powered SSD customized solutions in businesses and homes as early as the second half of 2022.
