Silicon Motion Readies 7nm PCIe 5.0 SSD Controller for Q4 2023

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Another mainstream PCIe 5.0 competitor is on the way.

Silicon Motion SSD Controller Roadmap
Silicon Motion SSD Controller Roadmap (Image credit: ITHome)

The best SSDs are about to get even better. Silicon Motion (via ITHome) is preparing the company's new SM2504XT PCIe 5.0 SSD controller to rival the likes of the Phison E26.

Silicon Motion has two PCIe 5.0 SSD controllers that adhere to the NVMe 2.0 protocol. The SM2508 caters to performance SSDs, whereas the SM2504XT targets mainstream SSDs. According to the roadmap, Silicon Motion reportedly started sampling the SM2508 in January. Adata's XPG PCIe Gen5 SSD is the only known PCIe 5.0 drive to leverage the SM2508 controller.

The SM2508 is an eight-channel controller supporting speeds up to 3,200 MT/s per channel. TSMC produces the SM2508 for Silicon Motion on the 12nm FinFET manufacturing process. On the other hand, the SM2504XT is on TSMC's newer 7nm process node. Although the SM2504XT is a four-channel controller with 16 CE (chips enabled), it will support speeds up to 3,600 MT/s per channel. Unfortunately, the SM2504XT won't be available until September. Both SSD controllers arrive with support for LDPC, E2E and SRAM ECC; however, only the SM2504XT supports I3C.

The SM2508 and SM2504XT support the fastest flash available. However, it's important to note that not all flash will run at that speed. Also, new flash comes in different variants; therefore, the speeds will vary.

Pickings for PCIe 5.0 SSD controllers are slim at the moment. In comparison, Phison's E26 features TSMC's 12nm process technology, so it's on a newer node than the SM2508 but a step behind the upcoming SM2504XT. The E26 supports eight NAND channels with 32 CE and flash transfer rates of up to 2,400 MT/s per channel. InnoGrit will compete with the brand's IG5666, but there's no public information about the controller's specifications.

Many brands have announced their PCIe 5.0 SSDs. However, heavyweights like Samsung, Western Digital and Seagate are still missing from the list. Furthermore, no one knows when PCIe 5.0 SSDs will arrive, and the vendors haven't committed to a specific launch date. Both AMD's and Intel's latest platforms have embraced PCIe 5.0. The only problem is that there aren't any drives available. Thus far, only CFD Gaming's PG5NFZ-series drives, starting at $377 for the 2TB capacity, have hit the retail channel. Unfortunately, CFD Gaming PCIe 5.0 SSDs are limited to the Japanese market.

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Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • TechieTwo
    There was a lot of hype this time last year about these great, super fast Gen 5 SSDs that were all going to be avaialbe to consumers in October of '22. That was just another fairytale.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    TechieTwo said:
    There was a lot of hype this time last year about these great, super fast Gen 5 SSDs that were all going to be avaialbe to consumers in October of '22. That was just another fairytale.
    They're not solving a real problem (for consumers, anyhow), so I don't even care. In the consumer market, PCIe speed is mainly just specsmanship.

    I have no interest in buying a SSD that thermally throttles or has an ungainly cooling solution. So, that means I'll do my best to stick with trailing-edge solutions that stay within reasonable power limits.
    Reply
  • TechieTwo
    bit_user said:
    They're not solving a real problem (for consumers, anyhow), so I don't even care. In the consumer market, PCIe speed is mainly just specsmanship.

    I have no interest in buying a SSD that thermally throttles or has an ungainly cooling solution. So, that means I'll do my best to stick with trailing-edge solutions that stay within reasonable power limits.

    Most Gen 5 SSDs will not require the oversize heatsinks supplied. Those are just a sales gimmick. Most Gen 5 SSDs will operate just fine with no throttling with the OE mobo heatsink. The Gen 5 SSDs are faster but not ridiculously faster than the better Gen 4 SSDs that run with just a flat heatsink.
    Reply
  • PlaneInTheSky
    There was a lot of hype this time last year about these great, super fast Gen 5 SSDs that were all going to be avaialbe to consumers in October of '22. That was just another fairytale.

    And the PCIe 5.0 SSD that are available, need active cooling.
    the last thing I want is a mini-fan in my PC that will start to rattle within a few months
    I don't like the idea of an SSD controller heating up so much that it needs active cooling, storage data and heat do not mix well
    PCIe 4.0 SSD sustained read and write is more than fast enough, it is these smaller random reads that are more important. PCIe 5.0 SSD haven't shown they can increase random read performance. SSD are still not at the level Optane gave us.Basically, PCIe 4.0 SSD are simply better atm imo.
    Reply
  • kal326
    For a good time still PCIe 5 will be only beneficial to enterprise space and mostly that’s for being able to conserve PCIe lanes by cutting drives back to 2 versus 4 lanes. Maybe some niche workstation offerings would be 4x or other storage devices targeting absolute performance over capacity.
    Reply
  • DavidLejdar
    Gen5 SSDs sure may not seem worth it for many users, especially when there isn't mainstream software which would make full use of it (yet). And by the way, one little trick how to increase data bandwidth otherwise is to spread out running software on more than one drive - e.g. I have the OS on one NVMe SSD, and games on another, and that way the software isn't competing for available bandwidth or delaying each other's latency (when or if there is a peak of demand to access a drive).

    I do have an air-flow PC case and a MB with M.2 Gen5 slot already though. So for me there isn't any extra cost getting a Gen5 SSD. Which isn't to say that I wouldn't go "ouch" if the asking price will be $200 for 1TB (with DRAM). But if I will eventually have a CPU for $500-$700 and a GPU for $900, then I don't see much a point in saving a few bucks on a storage drive, when a newer SSDs may offer better latency (especially at sustained loads) etc.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    With the report that Samsung is soon to join the other flash manufacturers in reducing output in order to increase prices, PCIe 4 and even 3 drives are going to be the most in demand for home users given the near to zero performance benefit of Gen 5 despite higher prices.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    DavidLejdar said:
    one little trick how to increase data bandwidth otherwise is to spread out running software on more than one drive - e.g. I have the OS on one NVMe SSD, and games on another, and that way the software isn't competing for available bandwidth or delaying each other's latency (when or if there is a peak of demand to access a drive).
    I used to do this with hard disks. With SSDs, there's really no point. If you've ever studied the IOPS graphs where they measure at different amounts of queue depth or threads, you actually need lots of outstanding reads to get anywhere close to peak IOPS from these drives.

    If you've got drives to spare or money to burn, go ahead. But, I think there's very little performance benefit to partitioning your stuff across multiple drives, especially if you're using a half-decent NVMe drive.
    Reply