SK hynix Inc. has developed PEB110 E1.S (PEB110), a high-performance solid-state drive (SSD) for data centers.

With the advent of the AI era, customer demand for high-performance NAND solutions such as SSDs for data centers, as well as ultra-fast DRAM chips including high bandwidth memory (HBM), is growing. In line with this trend, the company has developed a new product with improved data processing speed and power efficiency. To create this product, it applied the fifth-generation (Gen5) PCIe^[1] specifications.

SK hynix expects to meet diverse customer needs with a more robust SSD portfolio with the introduction of PEB110. This follows the successful mass production of PS1010^[2].

Currently, the company is in the qualification process with a global data center customer. Accordingly, it plans to begin mass production of the product in the second quarter of next year, pending qualification.

Particularly, PCle Gen5, applied to the new product, provides twice the bandwidth of the fourth generation (Gen4). This enables PEB110 to achieve data transfer rates of up to 32 gigatransfers per second (GT/s). Moreover, this allows PEB110 to double the performance of the previous generation and improve power efficiency by more than 30%.

Moreover, SK hynix has applied the security protocol and data model technology, or SPDM, to PEB110, for the first time for its data-center SSDs. This aims to significantly enhance information security features.

Particularly, SPDM, a key security solution specialized in protecting server systems, offers secure authentication and monitoring of servers. With the recent increase in cyberattacks on data centers, the company expects that PEB110 with SPDM will meet the high information security needs of customers.

The company plans to release the product in three capacity versions—2 terabyte (TB), 4 TB, and 8 TB. Also, it plans to support the OCP^[3] version 2.5 specifications for greater compatibility across global data centers.

“The new product builds on the company’s best-in-class 238-high 4D NAND, boasting the most competitive standards in the industry in terms of cost, performance and quality,” said Ahn Hyun, Head of the N-S Committee at SK hynix.

“Looking ahead, we are on track to proceed with customer qualification and volume production to solidify our position as the No. 1 global AI memory provider in the ever-growing SSD market for data centers,” said Ahn.

Notes:

¹Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCle): A serial-structured, high-speed input/output interface used on the motherboard of digital devices.

²PS1010: A data center/server-oriented SSD with ultra-high performance and high capacity that is based on PCIe Gen5 E3.S and U.2/3.

³Open Compute Project (OCP): An international council of leading data center companies from around the world discussing standards for hardware, software, and eSSDs to build ultra-efficient data centers.

-11 September 2024-