14 DAY TRIAL // The SATA III technology is still used for most HDDs and SSDs, but motherboards have begun to integrate SATA Express, which means that storage device makers are reacting.
Marvell doesn't make storage units, but it does deal in controllers that can act as the brain of solid-state drives.
SSDs aren't all NAND Flash chips, you see. They also need a controller to actually manage the data, decide where to write it and when, etc.
The latest chip that Marvell has released (88SS1083) is ready to take advantage of that 12 Gbps bandwidth that SATA Express provides (thanks to combining SATA with PCI Express). SSDs based on it should be able to attain 1 GB/s transfer speeds.
The chip also possesses Separate RefClock with Independent SSC (SRIS), which eliminates the need for an expensive shielded cable.
28 nm low-power process technology is another asset, as is support for 15nm NAND Flash chips, which have only been used sparingly thus far.
Lead customers of Marvell are already receiving sample shipments of the 88SS1083, but SSDs based on it could show up between June 3-7, and the Computex 2014 trade show that will take place in Taipei, Taiwan. And even then, they won't be selling, as mass production of the chip itself will commence in the fourth quarter of 2014.