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Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, a leading designer and producer of NAND flash controllers for solid state drives (SSDs), is announcing that its SM2246EN SATA 6Gb/s SSD controller now supports the latest 16nm 128Gb MLC NAND from Micron. The combination of the SM2246EN and the Micron 16nm 128Gb NAND is ideal for high performance SSDs up to 1TB in capacity.
According to Nelson Duann, Vice President of Product Marketing at Silicon Motion, “We are pleased to announce that we have delivered and qualified the SM2246EN’s firmware and reference design for Micron’s 128Gb 16nm MLC NAND to many of our customers. SM2246EN currently is in high volume production supporting multiple MLC and SLC NAND from major NAND suppliers. By supporting Micron’s 16nm 128Gb MLC NAND, our customers have more flexibility for their high density, high performance and power efficient SSD solutions.”
The SM2246EN is the best performing 4-channel SATA 6Gb/s consumer SSD controller on the market, even besting the performance of many 8-channel controllers. When matched up with the Micron 128Gb 16nm MLC NAND, the SM2246EN is able to produce sequential read speeds of up to 538 MB/s, and sequential write speeds of up to 450 MB/s. The SM2246EN also produces random 4K reads of up to 67,000 IOPS, and random 4K writes of up to 65,000 IOPS. This combination of controller and NAND also achieves lowered power consumption, to the tune of nearly 30% lower than the average power consumption rating of other SSD controllers.
Paul Petersen, director of marketing for Micron’s NAND component division, states that “Micron has seen tremendous interest in our 128Gb 16nm MLC NAND because it delivers a unique combination of capacity, quality, and performance. We’re pleased to work closely with Silicon Motion’s expert controller developers to enable a compelling storage solution for high capacity, high-performance and power-efficient devices including PCs, Ultrabooks, tablets and SSDs.”
In addition to the performance numbers, the SM2246EN achieves ultra-low power consumption. Average power consumption is stated as 56mW, which is well below the Intel standard/target of 80mW. In slumber mode, power consumption drops to 21mW, again well below the Intel target of 30Mw. In DevSleep (device sleep) mode, power consumption drops again to a mere 2mW, as compared to the Intel 3mW target. The SM2246EN supports both consumer SSDs and NAND-caching drives. Silicon Motion’s proprietary and configurable ECC (Error Correction Code) enables consistent data throughput, over the entire lifespan of an SSD. The SM2246EN can also support commercial and industrial-grade needs.
Silicon Motion’s SM2246EN and Micron 16nm 128Gb MLC NAND combo will be featured at Computex 2014 from June 3-7, 2014, in Silicon Motion’s private suite at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Taipei. The SM2246EN product page can be viewed here; while the Silicon Motion press release announcing the SM2246EN / Micron 16nm 128Gb MLC NAND combo can be viewed in its entirety here.
