Phison E26

The Phison E26 (PS5026-E26) was Phison's first PCIe 5.0 x4 consumer controller, released in 2023. Manufactured on TSMC's 6nm process, it was one of the first controllers to deliver sequential read speeds exceeding 14,000 MB/s, making it the fastest client SSD controller available at launch.

The E26 is an 8-channel controller supporting NVMe 2.0 and is designed for 232-layer and later 3D NAND. It features hardware AES-256 encryption, end-to-end data path protection, and is capable of driving both TLC and QLC NAND configurations. The controller requires capable cooling solutions due to the heat generated at PCIe 5.0 speeds. As a result, nearly all E26-based drives ship with a heatsink (sometimes including a fan).

Phison's E16 controller – an early PCIe 4.0 controller – also had power-efficiency issues compared to later designs.

Phison follows a platform model where the same controller silicon is used across multiple brands; drives based on the E26 include the Crucial T700, Corsair MP700, Kingston Fury Renegade PCIe 5.0, and MSI Spatium M570, typically differing only in firmware tuning, NAND source, and thermal solution.