Phison’s PS5031-E31T SSD controller promises PCIe 5.0 performance for low-power cost-effective SSDs

Phison has created a PCIe 5.0 SSD controller that won’t require huge amounts of power and cooling

At Computex 2023, Phison has revealed their new PS5031-E31T SSD controller, a new PCIe 5.0 SSD controller that promises users sequential read/write speeds of up to 10.8 GB/s, which while not top of the line, are very impressive for what Phison are calling a mainstream SSD controller. 

With their new PS5031-E31T SSD controller being a DRAM-less controller with only four NAND channels, it is clear that Phison’s E26 SSD controller is still their flagship PCIe 5.0 controller. That said, Phison’s new E31T controller appears to be highly capable, not just because of its maximum sequential speeds, but because of Phison’s plans to support up to 8TB of NAND using this controller and the controller’s lower power and thermal requirements. 

It looks like huge SSD heatsinks aren’t here to stay

If you have seen many PCIe 5.0 SSDs that are based on Phison’s E26 SSD controller, you will know that most of them feature huge heatsinks, or come with a strong recommendation that a heatsink should be used heatsink-less drives. One of the reasons for this is the power demands of Phison’s E26 SSD controller when pushing for top-tier performance levels, and the fact that this controller is built using TSMC’s 12nm lithography node. 

With their new E31T controller, Phison has moved to TSMC’s 7nm lithography node, and while this node is no longer cutting-edge, it offers Phison a huge increase in power efficiency, reducing power requirements and the thermal output of their new E31T SSD controller. While first-generation PCIe 5.0 SSD controllers are running hot, we expect future SSD controllers to feature more efficient controllers that have lower power requirements. 

In the future, we expect Phison to release a new high-end consumer SSD controller that will be based on a newer lithography node than their existing E26 SSD controller. This should allow Phison to launch a 2nd-generation high-end PCIe 5.0 SSD controller that will be more efficient and less power hungry than its predecessor, potentially eliminating the need for the large SSD heatsinks that we see today. 

Thanks to Phison’s new E31T manufacturers should be able to produce PCIe 5.0 SSDs that are more affordable and cooler running than currently available PCIe 5.0 drives. Let’s hope that SSDs based on this controller come to market soon, as it would be great to see more options in the PCIe 5.0 space, even if the controller is DRAM-less.

You can join the discussion on Phison’s PS5031-E31T SSD controller on the OC3D Forums.