SK hynix Inc. (or “the company”, www.skhynix.com) announced today that it has developed PEB110 E1.S (PEB110), a high-performance solid-state drive (SSD) for data centers.

With the advent of the AI era, customer demand for high-performance NAND solutions such as SSDs for data centers, as well as ultra-fast DRAM chips including high bandwidth memory (HBM), is growing. In line with this trend, the company has developed and introduced a new product with improved data processing speed and power efficiency by applying the fifth-generation (Gen5) PCIe1 specifications.

SK hynix expects to meet diverse customer needs with a more robust SSD portfolio following successful mass production of PS10102 with the introduction of PEB110.

1Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCle): A serial-structured, high-speed input/output interface used on the motherboard of digital devices.
2PS1010: A data center/server-oriented SSD with ultra-high performance and high capacity that is based on PCIe Gen5 E3.S and U.2/3.PEB110 E1.S for Data Centers

The company is currently in the qualification process with a global data center customer and plans to begin mass production of the product in the second quarter of next year, pending qualification.

PCle Gen5, applied to the new product, provides twice the bandwidth of the fourth generation (Gen4), enabling PEB110 to achieve data transfer rates of up to 32 gigatransfers per second (GT/s). This enables PEB110 to double the performance of the previous generation and improve power efficiency by more than 30%.

SK hynix has also applied the security protocol and data model technology, or SPDM, to PEB110, for the first time for its data-center SSDs to significantly enhance information security features.

SPDM, a key security solution specialized in protecting server systems, offers secure authentication and monitoring of servers. With the recent increase in cyberattacks on data centers, the company expects that PEB110 with SPDM will meet the high information security needs of customers.

The product will be released in three capacity versions—2 terabyte (TB), 4 TB, and 8 TB—and supports the OCP3 version 2.5 specifications for greater compatibility across global data centers.

3Open Compute Project (OCP): An international council of leading data center companies from around the world discussing standards for hardware, software, and eSSDs to build ultra-efficient data centers.

“The new product builds on the company’s best-in-class 238-high 4D NAND, boasting the most competitive standards in the industry in terms of cost, performance and quality,” said Ahn Hyun, Head of the N-S Committee at SK hynix.

“Looking ahead, we are on track to proceed with customer qualification and volume production to solidify our position as the No. 1 global AI memory provider in the ever-growing SSD market for data centers,” said Ahn.