Microchip recently announced the availability of its second enterprise PCIe Gen 5 SSD controller, the Flashtec 5016. Like the 4016, it is also a 16-channel controller, but it comes with a few key improvements:
- PCIe 5.0 lane organization: x4 or dual independent x2/x2 operation on the 5016, compared to x8, x4, or dual independent x4/x2 operation on the 4016.
- DRAM support: Four rows of DDR5-5200 memory on the 5016, compared to two rows of DDR4-3200 memory on the 4016.
- Expanded NAND support: 2400 MT/s NAND on the 4016, compared to 3200 MT/s NAND on the 5016.
- Performance Improvements: The 5016 processor is capable of delivering over 3.5 million random read operations per second (IOPS), while the 4016 processor delivers over 3 million IOPS.
Microchip’s enterprise SSD controllers provide a high level of flexibility for SSD vendors by providing them with significant power and accelerators. The 5016 includes Cortex-A53 cores for SSD vendors to run custom applications essential to SSD management. However, compared to Gen4 controllers, there are two additional cores in the CPU cluster. The DRAM subsystem includes ECC support (both out-of-band and in-line, as requested by the SSD vendor).
At FMS 2024, the company demonstrated the use of neural network engines built into Gen5 controllers. Controllers typically use a “read-retry” operation with modified read voltages for flash reads that fail. Microchip implemented a machine learning approach to determine the read voltage based on the health history of the NAND block using NN engines in the controller. This approach provides tangible benefits in read latency and power consumption (due to fewer first-read errors).
The 4016 and 5016 models feature a single-chip root of trust implementation for hardware security. A secure boot process with dual-signature authentication ensures that the controller firmware is not maliciously changed in the field. The company also showcased the benefits of the controller’s SR-IOV implementation, flexible data placement, and zonal namespaces, along with a “credit engine” scheme for multi-tenant cloud workloads. These aspects were also demonstrated in other demonstrations.
Microchip’s press release included quotes from the usual NAND suppliers – Solidigm, Kioxia and Micron. On the client front, Longsys uses Flashtec controllers in its enterprise offerings along with YMTC NAND. It is likely that this collaboration will continue further, using the new 5016 controller.
