Silicon Motion Announces SM8366 PCIe 5.0 x4 NVMe Controller and MonTitan SSD Solutions Platform for Enterprise Storage
Many vendors are starting to announce new products for next week’s Flash Memory Summit. Silicon Motion today announces its first set of PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD controllers for the enterprise. These controllers are built into a flexible turnkey solution platform covering various EDSFF standards. SM8366 and SM8308, the follow-up to SM8266 introduced in November 2020, belong to Silicon Motion’s 3.rd Generation Enterprise NVMe Controller Family.
| silicon motions 3rd Generation Enterprise SSD Controller | ||||||
| SM8366 | SM8308 | |||||
| host interface | PCIe 5.0 x4 / x2 (supports dual port x2+x2 or x1+x1) | |||||
| NAND interface | 16ch, 2400MT/s | 8ch, 2400MT/s | ||||
| DRAM | 2x 40-bit DDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800 (32-bit data + 8-bit ECC per channel) |
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| maximum. SSD capacity | 128TB | |||||
| Sequential read | 14GB/s | |||||
| Sequential write | 14GB/s | |||||
| random read | 3M IOPS | |||||
| random write | 2.8M IOPS | |||||
| namespace | 128 maximum, 1024 total queue pairs | |||||
Hyperscaler/cloud vendors need turnkey reference designs to quickly evaluate new controller features. In enterprise applications, controller hardware is only half the story. Associated firmware/SDK and user programmability to enable customer differentiation are also important aspects. With this in mind, Silicon Motion has given his SM8366 reference design a different moniker -MonTitan, to bring this reference design into focus as well.
MonTitan platform refers to OCP Data Center NVMe SSD and turnkey design/firmware development platform based on NVMe 2.0 specification. Hyperscalers can easily deploy his MonTitan platform on their own infrastructure for evaluation. Meanwhile, data center SSD vendors can use the MonTitan platform to create and sell their own data center and enterprise SSDs. This platform is currently available in U.2, E1.S, and E3.S form factors.
Silicon Motion claims that the platform’s combined ASIC and firmware architecture enables enterprise-level security without sacrificing performance and QoS. Towards this, they promote two of his key features: PerformaShape and NANDCommand.
NVMe SSD controllers can present SSDs as multiple separate storage volumes with their own I/O queues to the host system (namespace). The PerformaShape algorithm can use her per-namespace user-defined QoS settings to optimize the performance of her SSD in different ways per namespace. Silicon Motion claims true hardware isolation in this case to provide maximum bandwidth while ensuring that latency, QoS, and power consumption goals are met/adhered. The NANDCommand feature refers to Silicon Motion using real-time machine learning along with his LDPC engine to help with endurance (particularly important for QLC).
The SM8366 controller’s claimed performance numbers may vary for a particular design depending on the NAND technology, number of dies, and power limitations of the form factor. The company indicated that specific numbers for the various form factor reference designs will be announced later. Sampling is expected to begin in Q4 2022.
Silicon Motion’s press release points to the usual culprits providing support quotes: Micron, KIOXIA, and YMTC among the NAND suppliers. Alibaba Cloud has also expressed interest in evaluating the platform, which bodes well for Silicon Motion’s enterprise SSD controller efforts.
