As an important part of solid-state drives (SSDs), SSD main control plays an important role. In recent years, under the background of the country's vigorous development of the IC industry and the promotion of independent and controllable information security, domestic substitution in the storage industry will gradually deepen, which will bring opportunities for the development of China's SSD control industry.
Challenges and challenges coexist
In recent years, the SSD market has ushered in a period of rapid growth, and the growth rate has grown at an average annual rate of 20%. It is estimated that by 2021, SSD market shipments will exceed HDD, and in 2017, the global enterprise SSD market's revenue has exceeded HDD.
Unlike the HDD development period, the market is in a giant monopoly and the Chinese market has almost no chips or platters. In the era of SSD, with independent innovation, Chinese manufacturers already have a certain amount of technical strength. Coupled with strong support from the country, China's SSD control companies hope to occupy a place in the global SSD field.
According to Shen Fei, the founder of Recalling Technology, about ten years ago, in the first wave of localization, SSD master companies such as Shandong Huaxin, Hangzhou Huawei Micro and Shenzhen Silicon were spawned, and now they are accompanied by The needs of the national strategy, as well as the continuous improvement of the company's own strength, China's SSD control market is ushering in the second wave of development.
"In the face of this wave of market opportunities, there is an opportunity for China's SSD control companies to become bigger and stronger, and there may be excellent companies like Marvell and Hui Rong." Shen Fei said in an interview with the MicroNetwork reporter.
Opportunities do exist, but with giants such as Marvell, Qunlian, and Huirong already standing in the market, for China's SSD control companies, especially start-ups, the reality is still harsh, and it can be described as an opportunity challenge.
"Storage involves data security, and it attaches great importance to product brands, which in turn makes it difficult for start-ups to break through quickly. But because giants are relatively conservative in their product definitions and have a relatively long research and development cycle, if Chinese start-up companies can Effective product definition, the introduction of differentiated products to quickly open the market, there is a chance to achieve a curve overtaking.” Shen Fei said.
Analysts pointed out that it is at least 2-3 years before China's SSD master control enterprises really get on the stage. This process needs to fully prove the commercialization capabilities of products and be recognized by the original FLASH manufacturer.
In addition, with the NAND products stored in the Yangtze River in the third quarter, mass production, according to micro-network reporter learned that in March this year, the Yangtze River storage will include major manufacturers including domestic manufacturers to provide NAND particles, Chinese storage vendors have After the NAND production capacity, China's main control companies will also benefit from this.
As for the leading company Changjiang Storage, although there is no clear release of relevant information on the layout of SSDs in the main control field, some analysts pointed out that after Changjiang Storage achieves mass production, the next step will certainly involve SSDs. The possible way is to acquire one or several independent master companies.
The acquisition of independent IC design companies and large manufacturers is the two routes for SSDs to dominate the future development of enterprises. From the perspective of corporate development in the United States, both routes can be successful, and companies on different routes can meet different market needs. For domestic companies, both routes are viable routes. Especially in the period when the domestic manufacturers of NAND flash memory are still unable to compete with the NAND manufacturers in the United States, Japan and South Korea, independent masters have relatively better opportunities for development.
Three ridges: technology, talents and funds
The SSD master control technology threshold is: First, chip technology. Today's top-tier vendors are generally streaming at 28nm and 16nm, while traditional companies still stay at 55nm (Shandong Huaxin, Huaxin Micro) and 40nm (National Micro). The second is storage-related technologies, including flash memory management, error correction, and encryption algorithms.
The main technical challenges for flash memory management are: First, the loss balancing on the FTL; second, the processing of write amplification; write amplification and wear leveling are accomplished through firmware; and they are written by an algorithm engineer, which requires a higher technical level of talents. LDPC error correction technology that is used after NAND flash has entered 3DTLC flash memory has only a few companies that have such a solution.
The SSD master control may contain several CPUs. To implement program management, the corresponding SSD management algorithm is required, and the requirements for the firmware are also relatively high. The talents in this field are relatively lacking in China.
"The main players in SSD control are mainly in the United States and Taiwan. Although these companies have R&D centers in the mainland, most engineers in China do not have access to the core technologies of storage. There is a certain gap in technology accumulation. "Shen Fei said.
In addition, for many independent SSD control companies, the ability to quickly adapt to the latest NAND granules is also critical. The wide adaptability of various manufacturers' NAND is the competitive advantage of independent SSD vendors relative to NAND vendors' self-developed masters.
For example, Shen Fei said that in terms of adaptability and stability, the adaptation period of a NAND product such as Marvell and Hui Rong usually takes three months or even six months. If domestically controlled companies can approach or shorten this period, The process will allow Chinese companies to have an opportunity to bring their products to market earlier and take the lead.
The ssdfans founder Zhao Zhanxiang (pen name dumb) told Microblog. In the consumer market, NAND costs account for 90% of the total cost of SSDs. Consumer-level SSDs need to be familiar with each FLASH product, be able to support all products, and support the supply chain.
"Compared with the big manufacturers, the independent main control company lacks NANDFLASH, which also lacks the key parameters to optimize the error correction algorithm, and product performance will be affected to a certain extent." Zhao Zhanxiang said.
In addition, for independent controlling companies, because of the large number of customers, each customer must invest a lot of resources to support such technologies as NAND adaptation, which makes these companies have to bear higher financial pressure.
According to Shen Fei, a 28nm master chip from the R & D to market will require about 15 million US dollars. As an industry with high capital investment, if it fails to open the market quickly through effective product definition, and succeeds in R&D, it will not be able to form a benign financial cycle for product-market-development, and it will also bring financial pressure to the development of the company.
List of SSD Control Companies in China
In the era of HDD, Chinese companies were almost completely wiped out and no domestic companies entered the industry. In the era of SSD, China has emerged many companies that have mastered core technologies. Currently, there are nearly 30 domestic manufacturers with independent SSD mastering and hundreds of SSD products, forming a relatively complete industrial chain. Some domestic main manufacturers have already entered the supply chain of the world's leading manufacturers.
Huawei HiSilicon is currently the most recognized SSD control vendor in the industry. Enterprise-class SSD products have been introduced and are mainly used in Huawei products. The relevant information has not been disclosed too much.
The old players represented by Hangzhou Huawei Micro, Shandong Huaxin, and Shenzhen Silicon Grid started from the earlier wave of localization and worked in industrial control and security fields for many years. Relatively speaking, these markets are relatively closed, and channel and market risks are relatively small.
In 2015, Guoke Micro was favored by the "big fund" and became the first design company for the "major fund" actual capital injection. In 2017, Guoke Micro's second-generation SSD control chip GK2301 came out. The GK2301 series SSD control chip obtained the commercial cipher product type certificate issued by the State Cryptographic Administration Bureau, and became the first domestic state secret and national test dual certification SSD control chip.
"Chip R&D is an iterative process. We are developing a third-generation master chip that will meet the high security and storage performance requirements." Zhou Guo, chief operating officer of Guoke Micro, said, " Compared with large international companies, we have advantages in the industry market, providing differentiated and competitive solutions according to different application scenarios, and we hope to enter into high-end industries such as finance through this point of view."
Hua Weiwei started from the SD/MMC and U disk controllers. After acquiring the initio® bridge chip product line of the United States in 2015, its competitive advantages in high-speed interface technologies such as SATA and PCIe were obvious. At the same time, Hua Wei Microelectronics is also one of the few companies in the country that has information security algorithm chip technology, and is a small number of Chinese chip companies that have been exporting overseas.
Shandong Huaxin Semiconductor is the only chip and solution manufacturer in China that possesses three major advantages of ultra-high-speed interface, large-capacity storage control and nationwide production of password algorithms. Has launched the first domestic USB3.0 national storage control chip HX6802 (State secret model SSX1411) and the domestic first SATA3.0 national storage control chip HX8800 (State secret model SSX1526), and has introduced a series of mobile secure storage and solid state The hard disk solution broke the monopoly of foreign countries and improved the platform and customized service capabilities of the on-chip system firmware.
Shenzhen Silicon was established in 2007. In September 2017, the SSD with the latest SSD master chip SG9081 of silicon grid was introduced. It is also understood that products such as the silicon grid PCIe SSD control chip are also being planned.
Recalling core technology was established in 2015, mainly focusing on high-end consumer and entry-level enterprise controller products. On November 15, 2017, Yonex Technology successfully launched the first domestic commercial NVMeSSD master chip STAR1000, which has been adopted by SSD manufacturers and is the first master chip selected by the mainstream SSD manufacturers in the industry. Marks a key step in the domestic SSD master chip.
Lianhe Technology was established in November 2014. In 2017, MAS090X, the SSD master chip supporting 3D NAND, was successfully launched. It is currently in the mass production sales stage. Among them, MAS0901 is mainly aimed at SSD products for enterprise and industrial control applications. MAS0902 is mainly targeted at SSD products for consumer applications and can provide customers with cost-effective DRAM LESSSSD solutions.
At the same time, in the enterprise field, there are many well-known SSD vendors in China that use FPGA controller solutions, such as Fangyi Information Technology and Baocun Technology.
In the field of military industry, since the company launched the self-developed ZQ706 series of four-channel SSD master chip in 2016, ZQ706ES upgraded solid-state hard disk controller with autonomous controllable technology was launched again in 2017, which broke the domestic long-term dependence in this field. The status quo of imports has taken a solid step in the independent, safe and controllable R&D process of high-end chips in China.
In June 2015, Qunlian Investment established Hefei Zhaoxin Electronics Co., Ltd., mainly engaged in design verification and R&D of control chips and memory systems such as eMMC and SATA solid-state disks.
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