At present, the rapid development of artificial intelligence and big data, the acceleration of enterprise digital transformation, and the explosive growth of data volume, directly promote the demand for enterprise-level SSD market.
According to IDC data, global shipments of enterprise SSDs are expected to increase to about 74.36 million units by 2025.
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Overview of the SSD industry
SSD, also known as solid state drive, is a type of hard disk that uses an array of solid-state electronic memory chips.
The SSD is composed of a control unit and a storage unit (including a FLASH chip and a DRAM chip), which has no mechanical structure and the storage and reading of data are completely realized through electronic signals.
As mass storage devices, SSDs use semiconductors as the storage medium.
Compared with mechanical hard disk drives (HDDs), SSDs do not rely on mechanical equipment such as engines, and have the advantages of high speed, high stability, and light weight.
The main hardware components of SSDs include NAND Flash, main control chips, and DRAM, of which the core software is firmware, and NAND particles account for about 70% of the cost.
Depending on the application, SSDs can be divided into consumer, enterprise, and other industry-level products.
Unlike consumer SSDs, enterprise SSDs are mainly used in the data centers of customers such as the Internet, cloud services, finance, and telecommunications.
In addition to the high demand for high performance and large capacity, enterprise customers also put forward stricter requirements for SSD lifespan, stability, data retention and other aspects of performance.
In the past, due to the high manufacturing cost of SSDs, PC data storage mainly relied on mechanical hard disks. In recent years, there has been an obvious trend of replacing SSDs with HDDs. In addition, the demand for storage capacity per device continues to grow as consumers' demand for data processing increases.
Enterprise-class SSD Architecture:
SSD industry chain
The upstream components of the solid-state storage industry chain include main control chip manufacturers and flash memory particle manufacturers; Midstream is a solid-state storage brand and module manufacturer; The downstream mainly includes mobile device and computer system equipment manufacturers.
Storage control chip companies focus on the R&D and sales of storage master control chips, and a few companies can also provide support for memory particle factories or other similar chip companies in the form of storage control IP licensing.
Storage module manufacturers focus on the design, processing and sales of memory products, and some manufacturers independently carry out firmware research and development, packaging and testing. A small number of manufacturers will develop their own memory control chips or entrust related companies to develop custom chips.
SSD Competitive Landscape and Leading Combing
From the perspective of the industry market structure, the enterprise SSD market has long been monopolized by foreign manufacturers, and the world's top five enterprise SSD brand manufacturers are Samsung Electronics, SK hynix (including Solidigm), Micron Technology, Kioxia and Western Digital, which together occupy all the market share.
SSD suppliers can be divided into three main categories: OEMs, module manufacturers, and independent SSD master chip manufacturers.
The original memory chip factory focuses on the high-performance SSD market such as the enterprise level, which has high market value, large volume and strong versatility, which is conducive to standardized production, and the main participating representative manufacturers include NAND Flash manufacturers such as Samsung and Phison Electronics.
Third-party SSD module manufacturers purchase NAND wafers and master control chips, add their own firmware algorithms and sell them, and their products usually focus on fragmented application scenarios that require customized design.
The third category of independent SSD master chip manufacturers mainly sell SSD master chips and solutions, including Huirong Technology, Lianyu Technology, Marvell, Realtek, InnoFlex Technology, Deyiwei, etc.
Among Chinese mainland manufacturers, YMTC is one of the few NAND Flash manufacturers, in addition to supplying flash memory chips to enterprise-class SSD manufacturers, it has also launched enterprise-class PCIe 4.0 SSD products.
Other manufacturers mainly focus on the software and hardware design of main control chips and finished modules.
Among the domestic brands, Yealink Technology and Yiheng Chuangyuan are in a leading position, and these two manufacturers are also the main competitors of Haipu Storage. Union Memory Technology has two self-built production bases, and has mastered core technologies such as self-developed main control chips, firmware design and packaging and testing; Haipu Storage is a holding subsidiary of Shannon Xinchuang and will increase the integration of design and production of enterprise-level storage products.
Since 2013, CAS Micro has also begun to lay out the field of solid-state storage, and has SSD controller chips with domestic independent technology.
In addition, module companies represented by Longsys, BIWIN Storage, and Demingli are also gradually building self-developed controller chips, packaging and testing capabilities, in order to enter the enterprise-level or industry-level market. #半导体 ##半导体芯片##存储##科技##财经#
Overview of the storage industry chain and the competitive factors of module manufacturers:
Source: Yole
epilogue
Overall, China, as one of the world's largest semiconductor markets, has a broad space for domestic substitution. With the gradual advancement of the localization of memory chips, domestic memory module manufacturers are expected to continue to increase their market share, and various segments of the industrial chain are also expected to usher in broad market opportunities.
Pay attention to [Leqing Industry Observation] and gain insight into the industrial pattern!