Posted on Wednesday, August 06 2014 @ 15:33 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Marvell announced it started sampling its 88SS1093, a new SSD controller that features four PCIe Gen3 lanes with 4GB/s of bandwidth. Besides enterprise and datacenter applications, the controller is also intended for "extreme-line client" SSDs. It supports up to 2TB of NAND flash memory and supports all modern flash chips, including 15nm TLC and 3D NAND. Sampling to customers just started so hopefully we'll see some disks in the next couple of months.
Marvell (NASDAQ: MRVL) today announced the introduction of its first native Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) solid-state drive (SSD) controller, the 88SS1093. The Marvell ® 88SS1093 NVMe SSD controller delivers high-performance solid-state storage solutions with a fully Flash-optimized architecture overcoming the SAS/SATA performance limitations by optimizing hardware and software to take full advantage on NAND and addressing the needs of data centers and client systems that utilize next-generation PCIe 3.0 SSD storage. The 88SS1093 also integrates Marvell’s third generation NANDEdge™ error-correcting, low-density parity check (LDPC) technology for higher reliability and endurance boost that was previously announced with Marvell’s fifth generation SATA SSD controller, the 88SS1074.
“As the global leader of the storage industry, we are very proud of our innovation, invention, and contribution to the advancement of a wide range of storage technologies and products. I am very excited to see that our new SSD controller solution has once again raised the technology bar with superior performance, high reliability and robust security,”said Weili Dai, President and Co-Founder of Marvell. “I am very proud of our close collaboration with leading tier one OEM and ODM partners around the world in enabling the rapid growth of the SSD market from client devices to data centers and enterprise systems. At Marvell, it is our pride and long term commitment to drive innovation to better lives for all in the new era of ‘Smart Life and Smart Lifestyle’.”
Supporting up to four lanes of PCIe 3.0, the 88SS1093 SSD controller is suitable for full 4GB/s or 2GB/s end points depending on host system customization and enables unparalleled IOPS performance using the NVMe advanced Command Handling. In order to fully utilize the high-speed PCIe connection, Marvell’s innovative NVM Express design facilitates PCIe link data flows by deploying massive hardware automation without compromise. Marvell believes this high-efficient data flow management will alleviate the legacy host control bottlenecks and unleash the true Flash performance. The NVMe design has passed in-house SSD validation and third-party operating system and platform compatibility testing.
Marvell's third generation NANDEdge error-correcting, low-density parity check (LDPC) technology can support 15nm TLC and 3D NAND, resulting in low enabling cost of TLC and 3D NAND. By developing single code for NANDEdge, SSD firmware developers are able to rapidly leverage one code to the other for the most advanced error-correcting technology for data integrity, endurance and reliability.
Key features of Marvell’s new 88SS1093 NVMe SSD controller include:
Fully hardware automated NVMe 1.1 support
Command overlay and out-of-order data return to deliver the full potential of NAND
Hardware automation on command fetch and status return
15nm TLC/MLC/SLC and 3D NAND support with Marvell NANDEdge™ LDPC error correction control and management
Advanced Tri-core CPU architecture to support high performance requirements
SRIS capabilities to support SATA Express running PCIe 3.0 speed for the first time
Up to 2TB support
M.2/2.5 slim form factor support with thermal optimization and small package size
New low-power management(L1.2) design
Advanced 28nm CMOS process
The 88SS1093 is currently sampling to leading customers. Marvell believes its NVMe SSD controllers will be an ideal solution for next generation of high-performance SSD for client platforms coming in 2015 as well as today’s hyperscale data center applications.
