Samsung Producing PCIe 2.0 SSD for Slim Notebooks

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. begun mass producing the first PCIe SSD for next-generation ultra-slim notebook PCs.

"With the Samsung XP941, we have become the first to provide the highest performance PCIe SSD to global PC makers so that they can launch leading-edge ultra-slim notebook PCs this year," said Young-Hyun Jun, EVP, memory sales and marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung plans to continue timely delivery of the most advanced PCIe SSD solutions with higher density and performance, and support global IT companies providing an extremely robust computing environment to consumers."

Samsung started providing the new SSD to major notebook PC makers earlier this quarter. The XP941 lineup consists of 512GB, 256GB and 128GB SSDs.

The XP941 delivers a level of performance that surpasses the speed limit of a 6Gb SATA interface. It enables a sequential read performance of 1,400MB/s (megabytes per second), which is the highest performance available with a PCIe 2.0 interface. This allows the drive to read 500GB of data or 100 HD movies as large as 5GB in six minutes, or 10 HD movies at 5GB in 36 seconds. That is approximately seven times faster than a HDD (which would need over 40 minutes for the same task), and more than 2.5 times faster than the fastest SATA SSD.

By mass producing the new PCIe SSD, Samsung has established a transition into the new paradigm in the global SSD market which enables increasing the performance and the memory storage capacity of SSDs at the same time.

The XP941 comes in the new M.2 form factor (80mm x 22mm), weighing approximately six grams – about a ninth of the 54 grams of a SATA-based 2.5 inch SSD. Volume is about a seventh of that of a 2.5 inch SSD, freeing up more space for the notebook’s battery and therein providing the opportunity for increased mobility that will enhance user convenience.

Samsung intends to continuously expand its production volumes of high-performance 10-nanometer class NAND flash memory, in helping the company to maintain its lead in PCIe SSDs for ultra-slim PCs and notebook PCs. Furthermore, the company plans to introduce next-generation enterprise NVMe SSDs in a timely manner to also take the lead in that high-density SSD market.