Press: This article is the analysis perspective of the master controller SiliconMotion (SMI).

Directory

1. 1. Introduction: Asian AI and SSD markets

2. 2. SSD AI driver requirements

3. 3. Technical progress in SSD industry

4. 4. SSD market trends and future prospects

introduction: Asian AI and SSD markets

SMI: Asian SSD market under AI tide-Fig-1

overview of AI development and applications in Asia

investment in artificial intelligence, number of patents, human resources, key application fields and government support in six major Asian countries and regions. Material:

• • China is ahead in all aspects. Whether it is AI investment, patent quantity or AI talents, it is far ahead of other countries. Its key AI applications focus on manufacturing, health care and finance, with a government support score of 9.

• AI development in Japan focuses on fields such as robots and autonomous driving, ranking second in investment and patents, with a government support score of 8.

• South Korea and Singapore have also performed well, especially in semiconductor, finance and smart cities.

• India is second only to China in AI talent reserve, mainly used in IT services, financial technology and health care, with government support slightly lower, at 7 points.

• Taiwan has less AI investment and talents, but it still has important applications in semiconductor and manufacturing, with government support of 7 points.

SMI: Asian SSD market under AI tide-Fig-2

current situation of Asian SSD market

the position and development trend of 6 Asian countries in SSD market:

• china is one of the largest SSD consumer markets in the world. With the intensification of Sino-US trade frictions, China is accelerating the development of local supply chains, and domestic brands such as Lenovo and Changjiang storage are also rising rapidly.

• • South Korea is an important producer of the global SSD market. Samsung and SK Hynix occupy a dominant position, especially Samsung, which owns about 33% of the global market share, and continuously invest in the research and development of NAND flash memory technology.

• • Japan has a strong technical foundation, and yaoxia is a key enterprise in its market, and the demand for enterprise-level SSD market is growing steadily.

• Taiwan has a global leading position in SSD controller technology, SMI occupies an important market share, TSMC and other OEM manufacturers play a key role in the supply chain. The competition in the consumer market is fierce, and brands such as ADATA and Transcend are active in it.

Note: the description of India and Singapore in the raw materials overlaps with that of South Korea and Japan. It should be a Bug that has not been changed when sorting out the materials.

SMI: Asian SSD market under AI tide-Fig-3

under the background of Asian technological development, the main challenges and potential opportunities facing the region are as follows:

• challenges mainly focus on technology dependence, geopolitics, data localization and talent shortage. These factors may limit the improvement of technological autonomy in some countries or regions and affect transnational cooperation.

• Opportunities are presented in the broad market scale, government support and development opportunities under the trend of digital transformation, especially in edge computing, vertical markets and localized AI solutions. In addition, innovative ecosystems and regional cooperation have also brought important impetus to technological development.

AI driver requirements for SSD in Asia

SMI: Asian SSD market under AI tide-Fig-4

the role of AI in promoting high-performance storage requirements

importance of key AI features (1-10)

requirements for high-performance storage (such as SSD) for different AI applications, especially the importance of key performance indicators such as storage capacity, read/write speed, and latency:

1. 1. AI and self-driving vehicles in machine learning training and financial transactions SSD has the highest requirements, especially for high capacity, fast read/write, and low latency. These applications have a significant impact on SSD performance.

2. 2. Big data analysis and computer vision large-capacity and high-speed storage is also required to process large data sets and high-bandwidth data.

3. 3. Edge AI and AI-enhanced network security it focuses on compactness and energy saving, and also requires encryption function and adaptation to extreme temperatures.

In AI applications, capacity, IOPS, read/write speed, and latency it is the most important storage feature, and heat management and durability are also more important.

SMI: Asian SSD market under AI tide-Fig-5

demand for SSD from AI workloads in Asian market

• • China

• • Asia's largest SSD market

• • The average annual growth rate (CAGR) of ultra-large SSD is expected to be 50%

• • India

• • The fastest growing SSD market

• • Increased demand for SSD with high cost performance and superior performance

• • South Korea

• the headquarters of Samsung and SK Hynix, the world's two leading NAND flash memory production

• leading in AI optimized SSD controller development

• • Japan

• high durability SSD focusing on industrial and robot fields

• • Among industrial SSDs, the NVMe adoption rate of AI workloads is the highest in Asia.

• • Singapore

• • AI finance center, the vast majority of SSD is used in the financial field

technical progress in Asian SSD industry

SMI: Asian SSD market under AI tide-Fig-6

the development of artificial intelligence technology is divided into three stages:

1. 1. Early Stage: Machine learning focuses on data learning and reasoning, including image and speech recognition and reasoning for specific tasks. This is the basic stage of AI development.

2. 2. Current status: Generative AI, which is the main development direction of AI technology at present, covers language models (such as GPT), intelligent virtual assistant, text and image generation, and AI-driven video editing and creation.

3. 3. Future Outlook: AGI, general artificial intelligence, represents the development direction of AI in the future. Its goal is to realize a comprehensive AI system similar to human intelligence.

SMI: Asian SSD market under AI tide-Fig-7

with the deepening of AGI, from Text based on natural language to deep AGI era dominated by pictures and videos, right the demand for data storage is increasing, and scenarios are paying more and more attention to performance..

SMI: Asian SSD market under AI tide-Fig-8

the technical path of the leading NAND vendors in Asia.

From a practical point of view, Japan and South Korea are still ahead of China in high-performance NAND technology.

SMI: Asian SSD market under AI tide-Fig-9

SMI two NAND master controls.

The left figure shows the data center scenario based on PCIe Gen5; The right figure is based on the USB 3.2 external interface and is widely used for portable devices. Its advantage lies in its strong versatility. Almost all modern devices (such as computers and smart devices) support USB interfaces and are easy to connect and use.

Asian SSD market trends and future prospects

SMI: Asian SSD market under AI tide-Fig-10

1. 1. AI-Optimized SSD Controllers(AI optimized high-speed SSD Controllers)

2. 2. Computational Storage Devices

3. 3. Advanced QLC NAND Technology (Advanced QLC NAND Technology)

4. 4. AI-Enhanced Firmware(AI enhanced Firmware)

5. 5. Edge AI-Specific SSDs (Edge AI dedicated SSD)

6. 6. AI-Driven Manufacturing Processes(AI-driven Manufacturing Processes)

7. 7. Advanced Thermal Management (Advanced Thermal Management)

note: as a highly commercialized IC product, memory needs high-intensity investment for every progress, and needs to do every step steadily and practice long-term doctrine.

Summary

SMI's report on the Asian AI and SSD market not only "advocates" market demand and its own products, but also conveys some scenario technical parameters, which are worth reading:

1. 1. Read/write behavior and characteristics of storage in different application scenarios, and their read/write performance requirements. (Fig-4)

2. 2. The description of the demand and development status of IC industry in many Asian countries is worth emphasizing: As the largest IC demand market, China is accelerating the construction of a local industrial chain; demand in India is also increasing. (Fig-2/5)

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this article is reprinted from: Wang Zhiyu public account

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PPT from Silicon Motion product Manager Jonathan Chou, report materials at the FMS-2024 Flash Memory Summit.