The artificial intelligence (AI) boom and rapid expansion of cloud-based services are accelerating the need for data centers to be more powerful, efficient and highly reliable. In line with this, Microchip Technology Inc. has released the Flashtec NVMe 5016 Solid State Drive (SSD) controller, a 16-channel, PCIe Gen 5 NVM Express (NVMe) controller designed to offer higher levels of bandwidth, security and flexibility.

The Flashtec NVMe 5016 controller is designed to support enterprise applications such as online transaction processing, financial data processing, database mining and other applications that are sensitive to latency and performance. Additionally, it serves growing AI needs with higher throughput for reading and writing large data sets used in model training and inference processing and provides the high bandwidth necessary to move large volumes of data quickly between storage and compute resources. At sequential read performance of more than 14GBps, the NVMe 5016 controller maximizes the usage of valuable compute resources in traditional and AI-accelerated servers under demanding workloads.

In addition to supporting the latest standard NVMe host interface, the NVMe 5016 controller is designed for a high random read performance of 3.5M IOs per second and a power profile focused on power-sensitive data center needs, delivering more than 2.5GB/W. The NVMe 5016 controller utilizes advanced node technologies and includes power management features like automatic idling of processor cores and autonomous power reduction capabilities. To support the latest Flash memory, including Quad-Level Cell (QLC), Triple-Level Cell (TLC) and Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND technologies, the NVMe 5016 controller provides strong Error Correction Code (ECC). All Flash management operations are performed on-chip, consuming negligible host processing and memory resources.

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The NVMe 5016 controller’s flexibility and scalability help reduce the total cost of ownership as advanced virtualization capabilities like single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV), multiple physical functions and multiple virtual functions per physical function maximize the PCIe resource utilization. The consistent, programmable platform gives developers who plan to utilize Flexible Data Placement (FDP) in their SSDs the control to maximize the performance, efficiency and reliability of Flash resources on the SSD. Coupled with Microchip’s Credit Engine for dynamic allocation of resources, the NVMe 5016 controller enables reliable on-demand cloud services.

As the volume of data storage expands, the risk of security threats correspondingly increases, underscoring the imperative for robust and reliable security measures. The Flashtec NVMe 5016 controller is designed to deliver enterprise-level integrity and dependability with comprehensive data protection, uninterrupted operations and safeguarding of confidential information.

Security features have been integrated into the NVMe 5016 controller to help maintain the integrity of both firmware and data throughout its lifecycle—from factory inception to retirement. These features encompass Secure Boot with a hardware Root-of-Trust, dual signature authentication to facilitate system OEM or end-user verification, support for various security standards through diverse authentication algorithms, user data protection with encryption for both data-in-transit (link level) and data-at-rest (media level) and sophisticated key management practices. These practices adhere to stringent security protocols, including the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-3 Level 2 and the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) Opal standards.

In terms of data integrity and reliability, the controller features overlapping end-to-end data protection with NVMe Protection Information (NVMe PI) and single error correction and double error detection (SECDED) ECC, and advanced error correction through Adaptive LDPC. It also includes failover recovery mechanisms utilizing Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID) techniques, further fortifying the resilience of the storage system.

By: DocMemory
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