While high-end SSDs with eight-channel controllers approached peak read speeds of around 14 GB/s years ago, mainstream drives with quad-channel controllers often offer around 11 GB/s. However, with new types of 3D NAND that feature a higher-speed interface, it is possible to get to 14 GB/s with just four NAND channels. This is exactly what Silicon Motion’s SM2524XT controller is designed to do: it has four NAND channels that support transfer rates of up to 4,800 MT/s and can offer up to 14 GB/s read speeds.
Silicon Motion’s SM2524XT controller is based on four (presumably Arm Cortex-R-series) cores, does not use DRAM, and complies with the NVM 2.0 specification. The unit has four NAND channels supporting data transfer rates of up to 4,800 MT/s as well as a PCIe 5.0 x4 host interface. The platform supports the latest types of 3D TLC and 3D QLC NAND and features SMI’s NANDXtend LDPC ECC technology to cope with the inevitable read errors of the latest flash memory, though Silicon Motion hasn't disclosed the generation of the NAND or the codeword size.
