Industrial NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) SSDs have become crucial in industrial applications, offering significant advantages over traditional storage devices. For instance, in industrial automation, transportation, and manufacturing, the ability to process and store data quickly and reliably is critical for maintaining system integrity and operational efficiency.
PCIe – The Basic of NVMe SSDs
These industrial-grade PCIe SSDs find extensive use in various fields, such as mobile terminals, functional devices, in-vehicle applications and 5G base station，where dependable and resilient storage solutions are imperative.
An Overview of Industrial SSD Standards
► Testing Standards:
- Stability Testing: Includes electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) tests conducted 1000 times in interference-prone environments and vibration tests up to 2000Hz.
- Compatibility Testing: Ensures BIOS and operating system compatibility, checks SATA and PCIe protocols, and validates electrical signal and hardware compatibility under conditions like jitter, temperature extremes, and electromagnetic interference.
- High-Low Temperature Testing: Consumer-grade SSDs are tested at 0℃ to 70℃, while industrial-grade SSDs are tested at -20℃ to 75℃ or -40℃ to 85℃, including Burn-In tests and SDstress tests across five cycles.
► Material Standards:
Industrial SSDs typically use TLC (Triple-Level Cell) technologies, while some high-end consumer SSDs may use MLC (Multi-Level Cell) technologies. TLC, or Triple-Level Cell, is a type of NAND flash memory technology used in solid-state drives (SSDs) and other storage devices. In TLC flash memory, each memory cell can store three bits of data, allowing for higher data density and lower cost compared to Single-Level Cell (SLC) and Multi-Level Cell (MLC) technologies. The choice of TLC in industrial SSDs balances cost-effectiveness with the need for high durability and reliability in challenging environments.
The Importance of the PCIe Interface in Industrial Environments
1. Mobile Terminals:
In logistics and retail, mobile terminals require real-time data processing and reliable operation despite frequent handling and diverse environmental conditions.
The PCIe interface provides high-speed data transfer and robust performance. PCIe and SATA (Serial ATA) exhibit significant performance differences, with PCIe outperforming SATA in both bandwidth and latency. For instance, the bandwidth of PCIe 3×4 is approximately 5.3 times that of SATA III, PCIe 4×4 is about 10.7 times greater. PCIe interfaces not only meet the high data transfer speed demands of modern high-speed storage, high-performance computing, gaming, graphics processing, and artificial intelligence, but their diverse physical sizes, particularly the compact M.2 interface, allow them to adapt to various applications ranging from large servers to customized small form factor motherboards.
Industrial NVMe SSDs typically achieve sequential read speeds of up to 3,500 MB/s and write speeds of up to 3,000 MB/s.
Besides, they are usually designed to operate reliably under extreme conditions, such as wide temperature ranges (-40℃ to 85℃), high humidity, and continuous vibrations. They incorporate advanced thermal management and error correction technologies to maintain performance and data integrity, ensuring uninterrupted operation in harsh environments.
2. Functional Devices:
Devices such as medical equipment, network infrastructure, and industrial computers need quick and reliable data access.
PCIe offers low latency and high bandwidth, enabling rapid data processing in medical imaging and maintaining high-speed connectivity in network infrastructure and industrial systems. PCIe and SATA show performance differences in terms of bandwidth and data processing capabilities. PCIe enhances bandwidth substantially by increasing the number of internal lanes, progressing from 2 GB/s with PCIe 3×2 to 4 GB/s with PCIe 3×4, and further to 8 GB/s with PCIe 4×4. This increase in bandwidth improves the efficiency of large file transfers and high-bandwidth data processing. In contrast, SATA III, with its single-lane design, is limited to a bandwidth of 6 Gbps (approximately 750 MB/s) and cannot increase performance by adding more lanes. Consequently, PCIe excels in modern high-performance computing, video editing, big data analysis, and other fields.
3. AIoT/AI Applications:
PCIe technology is a critical enabler for the development of artificial intelligence and AI servers.
- Download and Upload Speeds: As highlighted in the PCIe technology overview, PCIe interfaces provide industry-leading upload and download speeds for peripheral components. This capability effectively meets the rapid data and information transfer and processing requirements of AI applications, thereby enhancing overall computational efficiency.
- Scalability: Driven by data-intensive applications such as artificial intelligence, data centers, and cloud computing, data center architectures are continuously evolving, placing higher demands on PCIe interfaces. PCIe technology has steadily advanced, consistently increasing data rates. By choosing PCIe technology, vendors can leverage the rate improvements brought to market by each generation of PCIe technology. Early last year, the PCIe 6.0 standard was officially released, doubling the data rate of the previous PCIe 5.0 specification to 64 GB/s, which is expected to be twice that of PCIe 5.0.
- Power Management Features: PCIe interfaces can be ready without consuming any power, thereby saving substantial power consumption. This contributes to extended battery life in mobile devices, a crucial value driver for end users.
- Real-Time Data Processing: PCIe technology offers real-time data processing capabilities, meeting the high real-time requirements of AI applications, such as real-time analytics and real-time control scenarios.
YANSEN's Industrial NVMe SSDs
YANSEN’s M.2 PCIe industrial SSDs are designed to meet the demanding needs of various industrial applications, offering high-speed data transfer, robust performance, and exceptional durability. These SSDs come in capacities ranging from 128GB to 2TB and use 3D TLC NAND technology, ensuring reliable data storage even in extreme environments.
YANSEN’s M.2 PCIe industrial SSDs boasts several outstanding features. It offers read speeds up to 3500 MB/s and write speeds up to 3200 MB/s. It operates effectively in a wide temperature range from -20℃ to 75℃ or -40℃ to 85℃. Additionally, this SSD supports TLC Direct Writing, AES Encryption, PSLC, Quick Erase, and Firmware Power Loss Protection.
In summary, YANSEN‘s M.2 PCIe industrial SSDs combines high-speed data transfer, a wide operating temperature range, advanced data protection features, and quick response capabilities. It is highly suitable for applications requiring high performance, reliability, and stability, such as mobile terminals, functional devices, industrial and embedded systems and AIoT applications
Conclusion
In conclusion, PCIe technology boasts numerous advantages such as high speed, high efficiency, strong compatibility, good scalability, and the ability to integrate with other technologies, making it highly suitable for advancing artificial intelligence and AI servers. As technology continues to develop, PCIe will play a crucial role in driving further development in intelligent industrial applications.
