On April 3rd, Phison's PS5026-E26 emerged as the first and only commercially available consumer-grade PCIe 5.0 SSD controller. However, due to its utilization of the 12nm process node, its performance falls short of the mark, while power consumption and heat dissipation remain challenging, often necessitating active fan cooling.
Previously, Phison introduced an upgraded variant, the E26 Max14um, capable of achieving speeds exceeding 14GB/s. Nevertheless, its fundamental issues persist, making it difficult to manage.
The true successor to the E26 is still under wraps, but the upcoming "PS5031-E31T" is taking a different route, focusing on lowering specifications, reducing performance, and decreasing power consumption and heat dissipation, making it more suitable for the mainstream market.
The E31T will feature an Arm Cortex-R5 core and upgrade to TSMC's 7nm process, along with a cacheless design, allowing it to operate at cooler temperatures and be managed with standard heat sinks.
It still supports PCIe 5.0 x4, with 4 channels and 16 CE, with a maximum capacity of up to 8TB. According to official information, its sequential read/write performance peaks at 10.8GB/s, while random read/write tops out at 1.5 million IOPS.
In terms of other technologies, it also supports the seventh-generation LDPC, RAID ECC, AES256/TCGOpal/Pyrite.
As for commercial availability, the earliest would be by the end of this year.
The PS5027-E27T is a new PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD controller solution featuring a single-core CPU, built on TSMC's 12nm process, and suitable for M.2 2280/2240 form factors.
Flash memory support includes TLC/QLC, with 4 channels and 16 CE, offering a maximum capacity of 8TB, along with fifth-generation LDPC error correction.
In terms of performance, it's fairly average, with sequential read/write speeds peaking at 7.4GB/s and 6.7GB/s respectively, and random read/write reaching up to 1.2 million IOPS.
The lackluster performance of Phison's PCIe 5.0 SSD controller has raised questions within the industry. Some insiders suggest that Phison's current focus may lie more on marketing than on research and development.
However, Phison's provided data indicates that R&D investment has reached new highs in both operating income and operating expenses in 2023, accounting for 22% and 83% respectively. Additionally, the number of R&D personnel has steadily increased by 3000 people.
Nevertheless, despite the substantial investment and manpower, it remains unclear why Phison has not been able to deliver better solutions.
