Marvell Displays 88SS1093 NVMe SSD Controller at 2.9GB/s – CES 2015 Update

As journalists, perhaps the one constant that we are asked during our attendance at tech events might be whether we have seen a game changer, or something that stands out from the crowd.  Dare I suggest that we found that during our first day at CES, but Marvells display of their newest 88SS1093 NVMe SSD controller might be just that.

Seen in this picture above, this controller right now is testing at speeds of 2.9GB/s and those familiar with such shots might notice that there is no heat sink attached. It seems that while the world was anticipating and waiting for the Seagate (SandForce) SF3700 controller capable of 1.8GB/s to be released, Mike Chen and Marvell had other things in mind.

The 88SS1093 is the industries first NVM Express controller that uses PCIe 3.0 x4 and is theoretically capable of 4GB/s performance which has been unheard of previously.  This controller is compatible with a wide range of flash, including the latest TLC, supports up to 2TB and will be seen on a M.2 form factor before you know it.

Marvell was the first to state that it won’t be long before we just might see this on a M.2 form factor and that they are not experiencing any heat concerns whatsoever that they believe might prevent us from seeing extreme high power data transfer from ultra small factor systems.  Furthermore, it is believed that this controller will be fully capable of well above 3GB/s at the time of release.  Although we cannot state a date that we might see it in the wild, we can pass on that it is being sampled by Marvell customers presently.