SK hynix, early on Friday, announced the completion of the development of its PCB01 PCIe Gen5 SSD. This high-end SSD is intended for OEMs and is part of the company’s new Alistar platform, designed to deliver top-notch performance for client machines. SK hynix is positioning the PCB01 for AI PCs, aligning with the industry’s growing focus on AI technologies.
The bare, OEM-focused drives have previously been showcased by SK hynix, openly revealing its internal components. The PCB01 utilizes SK hynix’s Alistar controller, featuring a PCIe Gen5 x4 host interface and eight NAND channels, solidifying its position among high-end SSDs. The controller is paired with the company’s latest 238-layer TLC NAND (H25T1TD48C & H25T2TD88C), which offers a maximum transfer speed of 2400 MT/second. As with high-end client SSDs, there is a DRAM chip on board, though the capacity remains undisclosed by the company.
SK hynix plans for the PCB01 to achieve peak read speeds of up to 14GB/second, with peak sequential write speeds of up to 12GB/second (utilizing pSLC caching). These performance figures are robust for an 8-channel drive. At Computex, the company mentioned that the drives should sustain 4K random read and write rates of 2 million IOPS, indicating very high random performance. The SSDs are also reported to consume up to 30% less power than their predecessors, though SK hynix did not detail this figure. Typically, energy efficiency in storage solutions is measured per bit rather than total power consumption, likely the method used here as well.
Initially, SK hynix plans to release the PCB01 in 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB capacities. The 238L TLC NAND has a capacity of 512Gbit, making these typical single-sided drive capacities. While the recent focus is on OEM drives, this controller and NAND will also be present in the previously-teased retail Platinum P51 SSD, providing more insight into that product line as well.
Ahn Hyun, Head of the N-S Committee at SK hynix, noted that multiple global CPU providers for on-device AI PCs are in the midst of the compatibility validation process for the PCB01. Expect to see these drives in PCs during the back-to-school and holiday seasons.
“We will work towards enhancing our leadership as the global top AI memory provider also in the NAND solution space by successfully completing the customer validation and mass production of PCB01, which will be in the limelight,” Ahn Hyun said.
