To Meet Growing eSSD Market

4TB SATA SSD (left)+ 1TB PCIe SSD (right) + 72-Layer 512Gb 3D NAND Chip (left front) + NAND Flash Controller (right front).
4TB SATA SSD (left)+ 1TB PCIe SSD (right) + 72-Layer 512Gb 3D NAND Chip (left front) + NAND Flash Controller (right front).

 

SK Hynix has completed the development of an enterprise SATA Solid State Drive (eSSD) with the 72-Layer 512Gb 3D NAND Flash chips. 

SK Hynix announced on February 4 that it has completed the development of an enterprise SATA Solid State Drive (eSSD) with the 72-Layer 512Gb 3D NAND Flash chips, ready for its full-fledged entrance to the high value-added eSSD market.

SK Hynix succeeded in making its 72-Layer 512Gb 3D NAND chips double the current biggest density of the SSD of the same size with 256Gb NAND chips by combining the latest 3D NAND Flash with its in-house firmware and controller to provide the maximum density of 4TB (Terabytes).

A single 4TB SSD could contain 200 UHD (Ultra-HD) movies, each of which is generally as large as approximately 20GB (Gigabytes). The new eSSD supports sequential read/write speed up to 560 Megabytes per second (MB/s) and 515MB/s, respectively, and it can perform 98,000 random read input/output operations per second (IOPS) and 32,000 random write IOPS. The Korea’s second largest chip maker also improved the read latency, which is of the utmost importance in eSSD performance. The Company is sampling the product to server and data center clients in the United States.

SK Hynix also finished the development of enterprise PCI Express (PCIe) SSD and is shipping samples to server and data center clients. The PCIe SSD will also use the 72-Layer 3D NAND and have a capacity of more than 1TB. The 1TB PCIe SSD operates at 2,700MB/s and 1,100MB/s of sequential read/write speed and runs random read/write performance of 230,000 IOPS and 35,000 IOPS.

“SK Hynix started mass-producing Client SSD with its 3D NAND chips and in-house firmware and controller last year. Now we have expanded our SSD business portfolio with the development of eSSD,” said Jin Kang, the head of NAND Planning and Enabling Department, adding, “The company plans to actively meet demands of the growing eSSD market to enhance its profitability in NAND Flash business.”

The global SSD market revenue is estimated to total US$25.1 billion in 2017 and post a continuous annual growth of 5.6% to reach US$31.2 billion in 2021, according to IHS Markit. In particular, the enterprise SSD will lead the market growth by rising from US$13.4 billion to US$17.6 billion at a CAGR of 7% during the same period.

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