Microchip lately introduced the provision of their second PCIe Gen 5 enterprise SSD controller – the Flashtec 5016. Just like the 4016, that is additionally a 16-channel controller, however there are some key updates:
- PCIe 5.0 lane group: Operation in x4 or twin unbiased x2 / x2 mode within the 5016, in comparison with the x8, or x4, or twin unbiased x4 / x2 mode within the 4016.
- DRAM assist: 4 ranks of DDR5-5200 within the 5016, in comparison with two ranks of DDR4-3200 within the 4016.
- Prolonged NAND assist: 2400 MT/s NAND within the 4016, in comparison with the 3200 MT/s NAND assist within the 5016.
- Efficiency enhancements: The 5016 is able to delivering 3.5M+ random learn IOPS in comparison with the 3M+ of the 4016.
Microchip’s enterprise SSD controllers present a excessive stage of flexibility to SSD distributors by offering them with vital horsepower and accelerators. The 5016 contains Cortex-A53 cores for SSD distributors to run customized purposes related to SSD administration. Nevertheless, in comparison with the Gen4 controllers, there are two extra cores within the CPU cluster. The DRAM subsystem contains ECC assist (each out-of-band and inline, as desired by the SSD vendor).
At FMS 2024, the corporate demonstrated an utility of the neural community engines embedded within the Gen5 controllers. Controllers often make use of a ‘read-retry’ operation with altered read-out voltages for flash reads that don’t full efficiently. Microchip carried out a machine studying method to find out the read-out voltage based mostly on the well being historical past of the NAND block utilizing the NN engines within the controller. This method delivers tangible advantages for learn latency and energy consumption (because of a smaller variety of errors on the primary learn).
The 4016 and 5016 include a single-chip root of belief implementation for {hardware} safety. A safe boot course of with dual-signature authentication ensures that the controller firmware shouldn’t be maliciously altered within the discipline. The corporate additionally introduced out the benefits of their controller’s implementation of SR-IOV, versatile knowledge placement, and zoned namespaces together with their ‘credit score engine’ scheme for multi-tenant cloud workloads. These points had been additionally introduced out in different demonstrations.
Microchip’s press launch included quotes from the same old NAND distributors – Solidigm, Kioxia, and Micron. On the shopper entrance, Longsys has been utilizing Flashtec controllers of their enterprise choices together with YMTC NAND. It’s probably that this collaboration will proceed additional utilizing the brand new 5016 controller.
