OCP Summit: NVMe Chipset Solutions to Address Emerging Data Center SSD Requirements From Marvell

Marvell Technology Group Ltd. is launching NVMe-based chipset solutions that will accelerate the time to market for application-optimized data center SSD implementations.

These versatile building blocks can address current and emerging workload storage requirements, spanning capacity, latency, performance, power and cost, to enable tailored SSD solutions for specific cloud and enterprise workloads.

The proliferation of cloud services and new technologies, such as AI and machine learning, is driving various workloads in the data center. These evolving and expanding workloads can have differing storage requirements that emerging SSD form factors are targeted to address. The company has developed NVMe chip sets capable of powering the larger enterprise storage Form Factors (EDSFF), Next Generation Small Form Factors (NGSFF) and various customized form factors, providing the ability to increase storage capacity, performance and overall workload efficiencies.

The firm’s 88NR2241 intelligent NVMe switch allows data centers to aggregate and manage resources between multiple NVMe SSD controllers and workload-offload accelerators. It enhances multi-tenant, virtualized cloud and enterprise data center environments by offering high QoS and predictable storage performance using integrated virtual functions. It can provide up to 6.4GB/s of throughput and up to 1.6 million random IO/s, thereby enabling a flexible SSD architecture for optimal workload efficiencies around power, performance and cost.

The 88SS1098 and 88SS1088 are the company’s latest PCIe Gen3x4 NVMe SSD controllers supporting single and dual port functionality, the NVMe 1.3 standard, and open channel architectures. Both controllers are powered by the firm’s fourth generation of NANDEdge LDPC error correction technology, which provides support for 3D NAND TLC and QLC technologies, extending SSD lifetime while maintaining  latency and performance consistency. These controllers leverage the company’s advanced and proven SoC processor architectures to enable up to 3.6GB/s of throughput and up to 800,000 of random read IO/s, supporting up to 16 NAND channels and 16GB DRAM.

These chip sets can support up to 32TB capacities, allowing support of a range of cloud and enterprise SSD solutions – including M.2, NGSFF, U.2, PCIe add-in-cards, EDSFF and custom-built. The chip set architectures present data center storage architects with new building blocks through which to innovate and optimize their cloud services and workloads with emerging memories, offload accelerators and new data center infrastructure architectures.

Nigel Alvares, VP, SSD and data center storage solutions, Marvell, said: “Cloud and enterprise data centers are increasingly highly-virtualized, multi-tenant environments supporting a growing number of different workloads with varying storage requirements. To help data center operators address and scale while not compromising QoS, Marvell has built upon its storage technology expertise to develop industry-first NVMe chip sets that will deliver new scalable SSD architecture solutions optimized for data center workloads.“

“The cloud and enterprise data center SSD segments are experiencing rapid growth, with NVMe-based SSDs forecast to expand at a CAGR of 42% out to 2022,” said Gregory Wong, founder and principal analyst, Forward Insights. “Marvell’s innovative NVMe chipset solutions are well-positioned to capitalize on this growth trend and address emerging requirements with best-in-class building blocks for data center scale and efficiencies.“

“Lite-On and Marvell have a long history of collaborating to deliver innovative SSD storage solutions, such as the new NVRAM Hybrid drive that we announced at OCP 2018,” said Darlo Perez, MD, Americas region, storage strategic business group, Lite-On. “This latest SSD is a great example of how Marvell’s NVMe chipsets and Lite-On’s storage system expertise are coming together to help customers address emerging cloud and data center challenges.“

“Marvell and Toshiba Memory Corporation have a long-standing relationship to enable emerging SSD solutions,” said Hiroo Ohta, technology executive, Toshiba Memory Corporation. “As NAND technologies scale, Marvell’s NANDEdge technology and associated chipsets will be key solutions to address the latest data center SSD workload requirements.“

The company showcased its NVMe chipset solutions for data center SSDs at OCP U.S. Summit 2018 in San Jose, CA