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Phison

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For the river in Biblical Genesis, see Pishon.
Phison Electronics Corporation
Company typePublic
TPEx: 8299
IndustrySolid-state drives
FoundedNovember 2000; 24 years ago (2000-11)
Headquarters
Zhunan, Miaoli
,
Taiwan
Key people
Khein-Seng Pua (Board Chairman, CEO)
Aw Yong Chee Kong (President)
ProductsNAND flash memory
Flash memory controllers
Websitewww.phison.com/en/
Phison SSD controller

Phison Electronics Corporation (Chinese: 群聯電子; pinyin: Qúnlián Diànzǐ) is a Taiwanese public electronics company that primarily designs, manufactures and sells controllers for NAND flash memory chips.[1] These are integrated into flash-based products such as USB flash drives, memory cards, and solid-state drives (SSDs).[2]

Phison is a member of the Open NAND Flash Interface Working Group (ONFI), which aims to standardize the hardware interface to NAND flash chips.

History

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Phison was founded in 2000 by Datuk Pua Khein Seng and four others.[2][3]

Phison claims to have produced the earliest single-chip USB flash removable disk, dubbed a "pen drive."[3]

In early October 2014, security researchers Adam Caudill and Brandon Wilson publicly released source code to a firmware attack against Phison USB controller ICs.[4] This code implements the BadUSB exploit described in July 2014 at the Black Hat Briefings conference.

In August 2019, Phison announced that they would be releasing PS-50 series chips, e.g., PS5018-E18, that are designed to support PCIe 4.0 NVMe (non-volatile memory express) solid-state drives (SSDs). With such technology, the chips built on the NVMe SSDs have read and write speed of up to 7,000 MBs per second.[5]

In late 2020, Phison started shipping their E18 for high-end NVMe SSDs.[6]

In January 2021, Phison announced that they were planning to introduce a pair of USB flash drive controllers for high-end portable SSDs, designed to compete against current solutions that combine a USB to NVMe bridge chip with a standard NVMe SSD controller.[7] Phison also released a new entry-level DRAM-less NVMe SSD controller in 2021. For portable SSDs, Phison introduced the U17 and U18 controllers. For NVMe SSDs, Phison introduced the E21T controller in 2021, their latest DRAM-less NVMe controller. This is a follow-up to the E19T controller, which had seen very little use in retail consumer SSDs but has actually been outselling their high-end E16 PCIe 4.0 controller due to strong demand from OEMs.[6]

In January 2022, Phison introduced the E26 SSD controller, with higher transfer speeds than previous controllers.[8][9]

In April 2022, Phison announced a long term partnership with data storage company Seagate to develop and distribute enterprise NVMe SSDs.[10][11]

Subsidiaries

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The company set up a research and development (R&D) centre named "Phisontech" in Bayan Lepas, Penang, Malaysia in 2012, that was involved in the design and development of flash memory applications.[12] The R&D centre was later closed down in 2019 due to talent loss, work culture and lack of supporting local businesses.[13] In 2024, Phison started a new company called "MaiStorage" in Puchong, Selangor, Malaysia, involved in integrated circuit (IC) design and computer data storage technologies in data centres, electric vehicles, and generative artificial intelligence.[14]

See also

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References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Phison Electronics Corp. Profile". Reuters. Retrieved 2022-04-06.
  2. ^ a b Jia Teng, Liew (2021-11-10). "Is the grass greener in Taiwan for chip designers?". The Edge Markets. Retrieved 2022-03-26.
  3. ^ a b Fong, Fernando (2021-11-02). "Here's How The Malaysian USB-Inventor Got In Trouble In Taiwan". The Rakyat Post. Retrieved 2022-03-26.
  4. ^ "Wired: The Unpatchable Malware That Infects USBs Is Now on the Loose". Wired. 2 October 2014.
  5. ^ "Phison's next-gen SSD controller will boost NVMe SSD speeds even higher". KitGuru. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
  6. ^ a b Tallis, Billy. "Phison at CES 2021: New USB SSD Controllers, Adds E21T For Low-End NVMe". www.anandtech.com. Retrieved 2021-03-03.
  7. ^ Tallis, Billy (January 14, 2021). "Phison at CES 2021: New USB SSD Controllers, Adds E21T For Low-End NVMe". AnandTech.
  8. ^ Wilson, Jason R. (2022-01-04). "Phison showcases next-gen PCIe Gen 5.0 E26 SSD controller, offering speeds beyond 10 GB/s". Wccftech. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  9. ^ Dexter, Alan (2022-01-07). "Phison's next-gen PCIe 5 SSD controller is nearly twice as fast as the best PCIe 4 drives at 13.5 GB/s". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  10. ^ Mellor, Chris (2022-04-06). "Seagate and Phison get up close and SSD personal". Blocks and Files. Retrieved 2022-04-06.
  11. ^ Lilly, Paul (2022-04-06). "Seagate And Phison Partner To Dominate The Data Center With Next-Gen SSDs". HotHardware. Retrieved 2022-04-06.
  12. ^ "Phison opens technology centre in Penang". The Star (Malaysia). 7 July 2012. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  13. ^ "Taiwanese storage giant to relook at Malaysia as IC design hub". Malaysia Investment Development Authority (MIDA). Archived from the original on 30 May 2024. Retrieved 30 May 2024.
  14. ^ "Malaysia AI Storage: A new multi-million venture supported by Phison". The Malay Mail. 22 April 2024. Archived from the original on 8 May 2024. Retrieved 30 May 2024.


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