Storage expert Phison presented a new SSD controller at this year’s CES. The promising Phison E21T is supposed to score with PCIe Gen4 x4 and much more efficiency than its predecessor. The reason for the better efficiency is supposed to be the switch to 12 nanometers, among other things. Furthermore, Phison used the presentation to draw attention to its E13T. This should be able to be used even in extremely small SSDs in BGA format including PCIe Gen3 x 2.
E21T offers 25 percent more performance than its predecessor
The E21T presented is an SSD controller that is suitable for pretty much any application area. No matter if PC, laptop, console or mobile gaming – Phison promises highest speeds with the corresponding compatibility. The controller, which does without a DRAM cache, offers much more performance than the E19T. The reason for this is a change in the manufacturing process. While the E19T was still manufactured in a 28 nanometer process, Phison uses a 12 nanometer process for the E21T. The result is an SSD controller that is supposed to offer almost 25 percent more performance according to the manufacturer. Phison also supplies suitable figures for this. The SSD controller should be able to achieve up to 5,000 MB/s (read) and 4,500 MB/s (write) in sequential data transfers. In terms of IOPS, the new controller achieves 780,000 (read) and 800,000 (write). This makes it vastly superior to its predecessor.
However, not everything is new compared to the E19T. For example, both controllers share a Cortex R5 core and the number of NAND channels (four). Furthermore, both controllers have 16 chip enablers. But that was it with the similarities. Thus, the new controller also offers support for larger storage space. Now, instead of the previous 2 TB, a total of 4 TB is possible. However, we will have to wait a bit longer to benefit from the extensive advantages of the new Phison E21T. According to the manufacturer, series production is only planned for the fourth quarter of 2021. However, the first information already sounds promising.
E13T ensures high speeds for tiny SSDs
BGA SSDs come in tiny dimensions of just 11.5 x 13 mm. Due to their small size, they are particularly suitable for direct installation on boards of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Phison has now introduced a really exciting single-package SSD with the BGA-SSD-E13T. The E13T also works without DRAM and should be able to provide high speeds thanks to support for PCIe Gen3 x2 as well as NVMe 1.3. At least Phison’s spec sheets already read very well.
According to this, a corresponding SSD 3D TLC NAND and a storage capacity of 512 GB should be able to create 1,730 MB/s (read) and 1,180 MB/s (write). In terms of IOPS, it should be able to achieve 195,000 (read) and 245,000 IOPS (write). However, a clear performance drop can be observed when looking at smaller memory sizes. Thus, the SSD with 32 GB of storage space only manages 380 MB/s (read) and 230 MB/s (write). The IOPS of 24,000 (read) and 47,000 (write) are also significantly lower.
