SiliconMotion Expects First PCIe Gen5 SSD-Powered Notebooks To Be Introduced In Late 2024

wccftech.com:

SiliconMotion expects that the first notebooks featuring the next-gen PCIe Gen5 SSD storage solutions will arrive by the end of this year.

The information comes from SiliconMotion's product manager, Liu Yaoren, who states that the first notebooks featuring the PCIe Gen5 SSD storage solutions will be hitting retail by the end of 2024. It looks like that's also the reason why SiliconMotion wants to hurry up with its upcoming SM2508 ICs which will enable support for faster storage devices.

The SiliconMotion SM2508 is a next-gen PCIe Gen5 SSD controller that will be rivaling Phison's E26, offering up to 14 GB/s transfer speeds, 2.5 Million IOPs, and support for 3D TLC/QLC NAND. These high-end SSD controllers will also be followed by mainstream solutions but it looks like companies will be focusing on the high-end segment first which has also been the case with the launch on PCs (desktops).

Additional specifications were also confirmed such as the SM2508 Controller utilizing a 6nm node from TSMC and featuring a dual-core ARM Cortex R8 CPU for computational workloads within the controller. The memory controller will also operate at just 3.5W TDP which might make it one of the most efficient solutions out there and a perfect reason to adopt it for notebooks without sacrificing much performance. The PCIe Gen5 SSDs offer almost twice the speeds of existing Gen4 SSDs but it comes at a drawback which is the higher heat output so it will be interesting to see how notebook makers manage that.

There are already a few laptops such as the MSI 2023 series which comes with a PCIe Gen5 SSD compatible. You can plug in a retail Gen5 SSD into those slots but do remember that most Gen5 solutions come with large heatsinks that may not be compatible