Microchip Demonstrates Flashtec 5016 Enterprise SSD Controller

Microchip at present launched the provision of their second PCIe Gen 5 enterprise SSD controller – the Flashtec 5016. Just like the 4016, that is furthermore a 16-channel controller, nonetheless there are some key updates:

• PCIe 5.0 lane group: Operation in x4 or twin unbiased x2 / x2 mode all through the 5016, in contrast with the x8, or x4, or twin unbiased x4 / x2 mode all through the 4016.
• DRAM help: 4 ranks of DDR5-5200 all through the 5016, in contrast with two ranks of DDR4-3200 all through the 4016.
• Prolonged NAND help: 2400 MT/s NAND all through the 4016, in contrast with the 3200 MT/s NAND help all through the 5016.
• Effectivity enhancements: The 5016 is able to delivering 3.5M+ random be taught IOPS in contrast with the 3M+ of the 4016.

Microchip’s enterprise SSD controllers present a excessive diploma of flexibility to SSD distributors by offering them with essential horsepower and accelerators. The 5016 consists of Cortex-A53 cores for SSD distributors to run personalised options related to SSD administration. Nonetheless, in contrast with the Gen4 controllers, there are two extra cores all through the CPU cluster. The DRAM subsystem consists of ECC help (each out-of-band and inline, as desired by the SSD vendor).

At FMS 2024, the corporate demonstrated an utility of the neural neighborhood engines embedded all through the Gen5 controllers. Controllers normally make use of a ‘read-retry’ operation with altered read-out voltages for flash reads that don’t full successfully. Microchip utilized a machine studying approach to hunt out out the read-out voltage based completely on the correctly being historic earlier of the NAND block utilizing the NN engines all through the controller. This method delivers tangible advantages for be taught latency and vitality consumption (ensuing from a smaller variety of errors on the primary be taught).

The 4016 and 5016 embrace a single-chip root of notion implementation for {{{hardware}}} safety. A safe boot course of with dual-signature authentication ensures that the controller firmware is just not maliciously altered all through the subject. The corporate furthermore launched out the benefits of their controller’s implementation of SR-IOV, versatile info placement, and zoned namespaces together with their ‘credit score rating ranking engine’ scheme for multi-tenant cloud workloads. These points have been furthermore launched out in a number of demonstrations.

Microchip’s press launch included quotes from the an identical outdated NAND distributors – Solidigm, Kioxia, and Micron. On the patron entrance, Longsys has been utilizing Flashtec controllers of their enterprise picks together with YMTC NAND. It’s most likely that this collaboration will proceed additional utilizing the mannequin new 5016 controller.