China-based SSD controller developer Maxio Technology has rolled out a lineup of PCIe Gen5 controllers for solid-state drives with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface, reports MyDrivers. The controllers are aimed at enterprise, high-end client, and midrange client SSDs and can offer sequential read performance of up to 14.8 GB/s, which is in line with that what the most advanced controllers for the best SSDs offer today.
Maxio's family of PCIe Gen5 SSD controllers is composed of three devices: the MAP1803 controller for enterprise-grade SSDs supporting 3D NAND with an up to 3200 MT/s data transfer rate, the MAP1802 for high-end client drives supporting 3D NAND with an up to 4800 MT/s interface, and the MAP1806 for midrange client SSDs that can use 3D NAND with an up to 3600 MT/s transfer speed.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | MAP1803 | MAP1806 | MAP1802 |
| Max. Seq. Read Speed | 14 GB/s | 14.5 GB/s | 14.8 GB/s |
| Max. Seq. Write Speed | 13.5 GB/s | 14 GB/s | 14.4 GB/s |
| Max. Read IOPS | 3.5 M IOPS | 3.5 M IOPS | 3.4 M IOPS |
| Max. Write IOPS | 4.5 M IOPS | 3.5 M IOPS | 3.5 M IOPS |
| Max. SSD Capacity | 64 TB | 16 TB | 8 TB |
| NAND Channels | 16 | 8 | 4 |
| CE Targets per Channel | 8 | 4 | ? |
| Maximum NAND I/O speed | 3200 MT/s | 3600 MT/s | 4800 MT/s |
| Package Size | 23 x 23 mm | 11 x 14.5 mm | 9 x 13 mm |
| Manufacturing Date | Week 8, 2024 | Week 3, 2024 | Week 5, 2024 |
On the general features side, Maxio's MAP1800-series PCIe Gen5 SSD controllers seem to be more or less similar: they are all NVMe 2.0-compliant and support 4K LDPC error correction to support current and next-generation 3D NAND devices. (Expect enterprise-grade MAP1803 to support a variety of reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) features.)
While Maxio demonstrated its MAP1803, MAP1806, and MAP1802 silicon at a recent trade event (Memcon?), the company only displayed static samples of the chips — not SSDs in action. Given the fact that the controllers were produced in early 2024, this suggests that we are dealing with very early silicon revisions. Considering how long it takes designers of SSD controllers to finalize firmware and drive manufacturers to validate controllers with particular types of 3D NAND memory, we can expect client PC-oriented Maxio-based PCIe Gen5 SSDs sometime in 2025, while the datacenter-oriented Maxio-powered PCIe Gen5 drives will likely be available even later.
Maxio is among a few developers of SSD controllers that have managed to develop controllers with a PCIe Gen5 x4 interface. So far, Innogrit, Marvell, Phison, Samsung, and Silicon Motion have introduced PCIe Gen5 SSD controllers. It's worth noting that Maxio is not a newbie to SSD controllers, as the company inherited its SSD controller business from JMicron, which spun off several years ago — and JMicron has decades of experience with NAND controllers.
