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INSIDE THE P320H HHHL (CONT’D)
The P320h is built on a main half-height, half-length PCB. In order to fit all of the flash on the device, Micron created a mother and daughter board scenario where 64 packages are placed back-to-back on the left and right sides. Luckily, SLC has the benefit of high temperature operation, while MLC can suffer errors above 60c. Without breathing room between the flash, it could get quite hot.
The controller is centrally located in the middle of the card, with five Micron DDR3 DRAM chips along side. These DDR3 modules are 256MB parts running at 667MHz.
On the back, the remaining 16 pieces of the 64 NAND placements are located, with 4 more DDR3 modules. These are slightly different Micron ICs than the five front mounted.
The half-height, half-length board measures 68.90mm x 167.65mm x 18.71mm.
Micron doesnt own the controller. It is made by IDT.
We are aware of that, thanks. Our reasoning behind wording as such is because this is, by no means, a simple stock implementation of a controller and similar could not have been accomplished without Micron’s engineering expertise and software. Great point and perhaps we could reword things just a bit…
Micron has a Minneapolis-based controller team which did much of the work on the controller. Basically, IDT has a stock PCIe controller, but it’s easily modified for custom jobs. Micron refined the design for the P320h. IDT now has a reference NVMe design, but the NVMe standard is far from universal yet. One day, a PCIe SSD won’t need a special driver, but today they do.
Micron developed and owns the chip, IDT just fabs it.
Incorrect. This is the very same controller that is used with the new NVMe controllers that IDT has developed.
Just to help you out, this is what has been posted at Anands after they inadvertently stated it was NVMe.:
Update: Micron tells us that the P320h doesn’t
support NVMe, we are digging to understand how Micron’s controller
differs from the NVMe IDT controller with a similar part number.
Our interpretation of the chip appears to be correct as it is written and this same ‘structure’ has been used in the SSD industry prior. This is not a simple plug and play adaption of a chip, but rather, custom package.
Thanks again.
Yes, it isnt NVMe, but it is an IDT chip, therefore it is not developed in house by Micron.
old news
Just needs a few heat sinks and a fan or maybe a water block to keep it cooler.
Todd – What makes you think you know so much about this chip?
Is the RAIN implementation safe enough to use without RAID 1 running outside of it (say across 2 350GB cards) it sounds good, but if you have a firmware or controller related failure you’re still at risk right?
Is this bootable? And just for kicks, what would the as-ssd results be?