Solidigm Demonstrates World’s First Penta-Level Cell SSD at Flash Memory Summit

Today, at the close of Solidigm’s Flash Memory Summit keynote, Sanjay Talreja, SVP and General Manager, Client Storage Group, showed the world’s first working Penta-Level Cell (PLC) SSD.

"We're thrilled to show the industry’s first PLC SSD in action today. It is a major milestone for Solidigm as a new company, and an exciting moment for the future of storage technology with broad implications," said Talreja. "The opportunity to grow with our customers while delivering even more efficient and cost-effective SSDs is huge for key growth segments like AI, machine learning, and big data."

A penta-level cell SSD stores five bits of data per memory cell and can store 25% more data in the same footprint compared to quad-level cell (QLC) SSDs. The added storage in the same space will allow for future cost, space, and energy usage savings for solid-state storage. This NAND density scaling positions Solidigm well for growth in key segments such as:

• Data intensive needs of modern workloads such as AI, machine learning (ML) and big data analytics

• Building out of 5G infrastructure where faster, denser storage is needed

• Displacement of hard disk drives (HDDs), on which more than 85% of all data center data is still stored.

Solidigm has seen strong initial market interest for PLC technology from hyper-scale cloud service providers, data center OEMs, and storage innovators. Solidigm’s PLC NAND will use floating gate technology, further proof of the technology’s inherent strength in leading bit per cell scalability.

Solidigm believes floating gate cell design delivers strong charge isolation and very good voltage threshold distribution, making it well suited for “high” bit/cell scaling. Additionally, Solidigm will be able to efficiently scale to PLC because the technology can be manufactured on the same equipment used for QLC NAND manufacturing. Timing for Solidigm’s PLC SSDs, which will be available first for the data center, is pending.

Sanjay Talreja, left, and Jundal Choi of SK hynix, announcing the world’s first working Penta-Level Cell (PLC) SSD at Flash Memory Summit, August 2, 2022.