With the continuous development of 5G, big data, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, meta universe and other new generation information technologies, the demand for data storage continues to surge. Solid state disk (SSD) has gradually become the mainstream of the market because it can be widely used in high-capacity storage scenarios. At the same time, as the core device of SSD, the master chip has developed rapidly in recent years.

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Main control chip: "central processor" of SSD

SSD is basically composed of master chip, flash memory particles, interfaces and other parts. Flash memory is the core medium of data storage and the most expensive part of SSD. The master chip is the core device of SSD, which is critical to SSD performance.

The main control chip can be regarded as the "central processor" of SSD, which is responsible for reading, writing and erasing data, and communicating and exchanging data with various external computers or electronic equipment CPUs in the terminal application link.

The master chip is responsible for coordinating SSD program operation, data scheduling, and balancing the average loss of flash memory particles. When the data is transmitted to SSD through the interface, it is transferred to the flash memory particles through the main control chip for storage. At the same time, the master chip can perform important tasks such as error correction code, bad block management, garbage collection algorithm and so on by starting the firmware algorithm when necessary.

According to the different application fields and interface technologies of SSDs, the master chip can be used in consumer SSDs, enterprise SSDs and other industry SSDs; SATA, SAS, PCIe and other SSD products.

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Overview of SSD master chip pattern

Due to the high technical difficulty, not all manufacturers can set foot in the field of master chips. At present, SSD master chips are mainly divided into two camps: original manufacturers and third-party master chip manufacturers.

The original storage manufacturers represented by Samsung, Micron, etc. have their own master chips, which are basically not sold separately.

Third party master manufacturers are also usually IC design manufacturers. They specialize in developing master chips and supply them to major SSD brand manufacturers in the market. With the development of cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence and the increasing capacity demand of memory products, third-party SSD master chip manufacturers have gradually become an important presence in the storage market.

The first group of emerging third-party SSD master manufacturers came from the United States, represented by Meiman Electronics and Huirong Technology; Subsequently, the main control manufacturer of Taiwan SSDs came on the stage, representing enterprises including Groupon Electronics, Dot Sequence Technology, etc; With the continuous development of the mainland semiconductor industry and the rising demand for semiconductors, the main control manufacturers of terrestrial SSDs are also growing.

Introduction to mainland SSD master manufacturers (in no particular order)

Dapu Microelectronics

Dapu Microenterprise is a manufacturer of SSD master chip design and intelligent enterprise SSD customization. Its products have been widely used in mainstream server, operator, Internet and cloud computing data center markets at home and abroad.

In the second half of 2020, DPU600, the first self-developed PCIe Gen4 master chip of Dapu Microenterprise, achieved successful chip streaming at one time, and was transferred to formal mass production in April 2022. Based on the DPU600 master chip, Dapu Microenterprise has launched three major PCIe Gen4 product series: Rongshen 5 series, Jiaorong 5 series and SCM Xlenstor2 series.

In August this year, Dapu and WeChat announced that PCIe Gen4 enterprise SSD products had won batch orders represented by well-known international Internet/cloud computing giants in North America, domestic telecom operators and industry customers. In addition, Dapu Micro has officially launched the Poseidon Series PCIe Gen5 enterprise SSD products at the US Flash Summit at the end of July.

Derui Lingxin

Derui LinkedIn is committed to developing the core technology of the underlying storage in the computing architecture - semiconductor storage. Its main products are enterprise level SSD controllers that follow NVMe standard protocols, Turn key solutions, and enterprise level SSD products.

Derui LinkedIn focuses on the development of enterprise class NVMe controller chips and SSD products, continues to iterate, successfully develops three generations of domestic enterprise class SSD master chips and eight generations of SSD module products in seven years, and realizes mass delivery.

In 2022, Dirui LinkedIn's new EMEI chip will be successfully streamed and mass produced. This chip is the third generation data center and enterprise oriented NVMe SSD controller independently developed by Dirui LinkedIn. It is also the first enterprise level master of Dirui LinkedIn to support PCIe 4.0.

Yi Lian

Yilian deepens its efforts in the fields of enterprise level solid state disk, consumer level solid state disk, and embedded storage, and provides high-performance, highly reliable products and solutions for servers, data centers, personal computers, mobile terminals, intelligent wear and other applications.

Since 2011, Yilian has started to develop its own flash memory controller. At the same time, it has laid out enterprise level and consumer level controllers and adapted to all kinds of solid state disk products under Yilian: the enterprise level includes PCIe, SAS, SAT controllers, which are used in data centers, servers, unified storage, high-performance computing, high-performance databases and other fields.

In July this year, Yilian said that the company's enterprise level solid state disk UH811a&UH831a had completed product compatibility certification with the full series of server chips of Haiguang Information. At the same time, Yilian and other domestic CPU manufacturers' product compatibility mutual certification is being carried out in an orderly manner.

Hualanwei

Hualan Micro provides storage controller chips and solutions. Its products include memory cards, USB flash drives, mobile hard disks, solid state drives, hard disk arrays and big data storage systems, which are widely used in industrial control, personal consumption, enterprise storage and other fields. Its customers include mainstream hard disk products and storage system companies.

In November 2021, Hualan Micro's "Key Technology and Industrialization of Solid State Storage Controller Chip" project won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. This technology is a chip level technology of a new generation of computer hard disk and big data storage system.

In the field of enterprise SSD products, Hualan Micro provides SATA/SAS solid state disk products.

Jiangsu Huacun Electronics

Jiangsu Huacun Electronics focuses on the design of memory chips and the research and development of storage solutions. Over the past ten years, it has experienced changes in the era of multiple memory chips, and successfully mass produced multiple generations of chips, including PCIe Gen3, SATA Gen3, eMMC5.1, USB3.0, etc. The company's mature products include PCIe5.0 storage control chip HC9001 and PCIe5.0 NVME protocol SSD, eMMC embedded storage, SATA and PCIe consumer and enterprise SSD, etc.

Faced with the fierce competition in the enterprise SSD market, Jiangsu Huacun Electronics chose to go beyond PCIe 4.0 and directly enter PCIe 5.0. In October 2021, the company completed the research and development of HC9001 SSD control chip and went into streaming.

In April this year, the media reported that Jiangsu Huacun Electronics PCIe5.0 SSD master chip was successfully streamed. The prototype of the PCIe5.0 SSD master chip project has been connected to the CPU on the 12th generation Core motherboard through PCIe5.0. After mass production, the product will be mainly used in cloud computing, big data centers and enterprise servers.

Lianyun Technology

Lianyun Technology was founded in Binjiang, Hangzhou, China in November 2014. The company focuses on the research and industrialization of chips related to data management, with data management, general IP and SOC chips as its core research and development direction.

Lianyun technology products can be widely used in mobile communication, consumer digital, computer, industrial control and other related fields. The company launched a series of professional solid-state storage (SSD/PSSD) solutions with innovative design, which can provide support services for personal computers and industrial computers.

The core technologies of Lianyun Technology's solid-state storage control chip and solution, including high-speed data interaction channel simulation and digital IP design technology, multi CPU core integration high-performance data coprocessor SOC chip design technology, NAND flash memory media processing technology, have been widely used in the field of solid-state hard disk (SSD/PSSD) electronic market.

On December 28, the IPO of Lianyun Technology Innovation Board was officially accepted by Shanghai Stock Exchange. It is disclosed that Lianyun Technology plans to raise 2.05 billion yuan this time. After deducting the issuance expenses, the raised funds will be invested in the new generation data storage master chip series product research and development and industrialization project, AIoT signal processing and transmission chip research and development and industrialization project, Lianyun Technology data management chip industrialization base project and supplementary working capital.

Get a microelectronics

Deyiwei provides one-stop storage solutions including storage control chips, industrial storage modules, IP and design services, covering consumer, enterprise, industrial and automotive applications.

After years of development, Deyi Microelectronics has established a complete storage product line of universal storage (USB/SD), embedded storage (UFS/eMMC/SPI-NAND) and SSD storage (SATA/PCIe).

On November 29 of this year, the application for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board by Deyi Microenterprise was accepted. The prospectus shows that Deyi Microenterprise is expected to raise 1.224 billion yuan in this IPO, of which more than 40% will be used for "enterprise/data center level PCIe storage controller project".

National Science Microenterprise

Guoke Micro has long been committed to the development of large-scale integrated circuits and solutions in the fields of video decoding, video coding, solid-state storage, Internet of Things, etc.

In the field of solid state storage, GK2301 series, GK2302 series, GK2302v200 series and other master chips have been launched by Guokewei.

Based on its own master chip, Guokewei launched solid state disk solutions for different application scenarios. Among them, the security level solid state disk is applied to encrypted desktops, all-in-one computers, laptops, etc; Desktop SSDs are used in domestic storage devices and cost-effective desktop general-purpose computers; Industrial SSDs are used in industrial control equipment, industrial computers, outdoor equipment, etc; Enterprise SSDs are used in servers, firewalls, workstations, etc.

Yixin Technology

Yixin Technology was founded in 2015, and its business direction covers consumer level and enterprise level SSD master chips. The high-performance low-power NVMe SSD master chips independently researched and developed by the company have been mass produced and shipped. Firmware solutions have been delivered to industry customers, supporting many well-known brand manufacturers to launch high-performance NVMe solid-state drives.

In March this year, the STAR2000, a new generation of high-performance enterprise PCIe4.0 SSD master chip of Yixin Technology, was successfully streamed. Based on the 12nm process, it integrates 64 bit multi-core CPUs and NPUs up to 8TOPS computing power, fully supports the latest NVMe2.0 protocol, faces the data center and enterprise market, and will be introduced to the market in the second half of this year.

In addition, in the era of PCIe 5.0 SSD with higher speed and bandwidth, Yixin Technology said that it had started the pre research of the next generation PCIe Gen5 SSD master chip.

Yingren Technology

Yingrui Technology focuses on global storage technology and data processing systems. Its co-founder Wu Zining has rich industry experience. After founding Yingrui Technology, Wu Zining led the scientific research and future technology direction of the whole company, and directly led the SSD storage controller, hard disk controller, wireless interconnection and central R&D team.

In May this year, Yingjiu Technology launched the PCIe 5.0 SSD control chip Tacoma IG5669, which can bring the latest generation of storage solutions to the data center and further meet the rapidly growing storage and computing needs of the current data center.

Tacoma uses a 4-channel PCIe 5.0 interface with 16/18 NAND channels. While supporting the latest technical protocols such as NVMe 2.0, DDR5 and ONFI 5.0, it uses a 10 core CPU parallel command processing mode to give full play to the bandwidth advantages of PCIe Gen5 and DDR5 and improve storage performance. Tacoma can be widely used in high-end storage, including high-end computers, enterprise applications, high-end data centers and artificial intelligence.

Datang Storage

Datang Storage has been committed to the research and development of storage controller chips and security firmware for a long time, and provides advanced security storage solutions. The company has independent IC design capabilities and bottom firmware development capabilities, and can provide differentiated customization services according to different industry needs of users.

In terms of design, R&D and innovation of storage controller chip, Datang storage new generation storage controller chip DSS510 is the first in the world to pass the EAL5+certification, the first to pass the national security level II certification and the enhanced detection of financial storage chips in the storage industry. The chip supports 4 cores and 12 channels, SATA and PCIe dual interface channels, international AES, DES/3DES, RSA, ECC, SM2, SM3, SM4 and other algorithms, and has intrusive, semi intrusive and non intrusive attack security protection technologies.

Datang storage SSD products cover enterprise level, commercial level and industrial level, and have been adapted to domestic CPU platforms such as Kunpeng, Haiguang, Longxin, Feiteng, and Zhaoxin, and have been applied in government affairs, finance, power and other industries.

Hefei Megacore

Founded in Hefei Hi tech Zone, Anhui Province in June 2015, Hefei Megachip is mainly engaged in the design, research, development and sales of flash memory controller, eMMC, UFS, SSD and other control chips and complete machine systems.

The company's core products are embedded storage devices (Embedded), solid-state storage devices (SSD) and integrated circuit master controllers. The application of confidential memory related technologies can be widely used in consumer electronics, industrial electronics, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, mobile applications, artificial intelligence and other fields.

At present, Hefei Zhaoxin has applied for or obtained nearly 100 patents, most of which are invention patents. The patented technology covers almost all storage related product lines.

Hengyu Technology

Hengyu Technology, founded in 2012, can provide users with flash memory master chip products used in communication, consumer electronics and data processing industries. Its main business is embedded NAND Flash control chips.

The company has a full range of control chips, including SSD, eMMC, SD, etc. According to the official website, Hengyu Technology SSD control chips fully support the original mainstream 3D MLC/TLC/QLC NAND.

Tianyan check shows that Hengyu Technology completed round A and round A+financing respectively in 2017 and 2018, in which round A financing investors include TCL, ZTE, etc., and round A+financing investors include OPPO and other enterprises. In 2019, Hengyu Technology released PCIe SSD and eMMC chips with LDPC+AI debugging engine to support 3D TLC and QLC memory. At present, the release and mass production of PCIe SSD control chips have been completed.