In a new blog post by Phison, the DRAM controller manufacturer reiterates how PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs will experience higher temperatures and require active cooling solutions.
Phison sets a temperature limit of 125°C for PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD controller, active cooling, and new connector in conversations
Last year, Phison I showed Good set of details regarding PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSDs. Sebastian Jean CTO at Phison revealed that the first 5G solutions will begin shipping to customers by the end of this year.
As for what PCIe Gen 5 SSDs bring to the table, it has been reported that PCIe Gen 5 SSDs will deliver speeds of up to 14Gbps, and current DDR4-2133 memory provides speeds of up to 14Gbps each. channel. Although SSDs will not replace system memory solutions, storage and dynamic memory can now run in the same space and a unique perspective is provided in the form of L4 cache. Current CPU architectures consist of L1, L2 and L3 cache, so Phison believes that Gen 5 SSDs and later with 4kb cache can act as LLC (L4) cache for a CPU due to a similar design architecture.
Phison now states that to keep the power limit in check, they drop from 16nm to 7nm to reduce wattage while meeting their performance goals. Relying on 7nm optimized processing nodes can help reduce the power limit, and another way to conserve power is to reduce NAND channels on an SSD.
“In practice, you no longer need eight channels to saturate the Gen4 and even Gen5 PCIe interfaces. You can saturate the host interface with four NAND channels, and reducing the number of back channels reduces the total SSD power by 20 to 30 percent,” Gan said.
Temperatures remain a constant concern for SSDs as we move forward. As we’ve seen with PCIe Gen 4 NVMe SSDs, they tend to get hotter than previous generations and thus require massive cooling solutions. Most high-end devices these days are equipped with a heatsink, and motherboard makers have emphasized the use of their own heatsinks, at least for the primary hard drive.
According to Phison, NAND typically operates up to 70-85°C and with Gen 5, the SSD controller’s limits are set at 125°C, but NAND temperatures can only rise to 80°C after which it will go into critical shutdown.
When the SSD is full, it becomes more sensitive to heat. Jan recommends keeping your SSD and SSD below 50°C (122°F). He said, “The controller and all other components… are fine up to 125°C (257°F), but NAND is not, and the SSD will intervene in a critical shutdown if it detects that the NAND temperature is above 80°C (176°F) or towards that.”
The heat is bad, but the extreme cold is not great either. “If most of your data is written really hot and you read it really cold, you have a huge cross-temperature swing,” Jen said. “The SSD is designed to handle that, but it translates into more error corrections. So the maximum throughput is lower. The ideal spot for a solid-state drive is between 25 and 50°C (77 to 122°F).”
As such, Phison mentioned that they advise Gen 4 SSD makers to get a heatsink but for the Gen 5, this is a must. There is also a possibility that we will see active fan-based cooling solutions for the next generation of SSDs, due to the higher power requirements that result in more heat output. Gen 5 SSDs will average around 14W TDPs while Gen 6 SSDs will average around 28W TDPs. Furthermore, reports indicate that heat management is a major challenge moving forward.
“I expect to see fifth-generation heatsinks,” he said. “But eventually we’ll need a fan that pushes the air directly over the heatsink as well.”
When it comes to server-side form factors, Gan said, “The main thing is to get good airflow through the chassis itself, and the heatsinks basically reduce the need for crazy, high-speed fans because they give you a much larger dissipation surface.” EDSFF E1 and E3 specifications It has form factor definitions that include heat sinks. Some sharp repellers are willing to trade off the storage density of the chassis for a heatsink and reduce the need for high-speed fans. “
“If you look at the bigger question of where computers are going, there is an understanding, for example, that the M.2 PCIe Gen5 card, as it is today, has reached the limit it can go. The connector will become,” said Jen. A bottleneck for increased speed in the future.” “So new connectors are being developed and will be available in the next few years. It will significantly increase both signal integrity and heat dissipation capacity through connection to the motherboard. These new connectors may allow us to avoid placing fans on SSDs.”
Currently, 30% of the heat is dissipated through the M.2 connector and 70% through the M.2 screw. This is where the new interfaces and interface slots will play a big role. Phison is currently investing in a new type of connector that may allow for fans to be used entirely but for users who crave more speeds, there are still AICs and NVMe SSDs that will support better cooling designs. As mentioned that
news source: Tomsharder