SSD Controller
Samsung Phoenix
Samsung PCIe 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3 8nm (Samsung) 5 drives in database
Samsung's Phoenix is the in-house NVMe controller used in the 970 EVO, 970 EVO Plus, 970 Pro, and X5 Thunderbolt SSD, released from 2018 onward. It succeeded Polaris as Samsung's third-generation consumer NVMe design.
Phoenix supports PCIe 3.0 x4 and NVMe 1.3, and runs a 5-core ARM Cortex design. Paired with Samsung's 64-layer (970 EVO/Pro) and later 96-layer (970 EVO Plus) V-NAND, it delivered leading sequential and random I/O for its generation. The 970 Pro uses MLC V-NAND for maximum endurance; the 970 EVO and EVO Plus use TLC with an SLC write cache. The OEM variant of Phoenix carries the internal designation S4LR020, used in the PM981a.
Variants
| Variant | Note |
|---|---|
| S4LR020 | Internal designation, used in OEM model PM981a |
SSDs using the Phoenix
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SamsungSamsung 970 EVO2018 · Samsung 64-layer 3-bit MLC V-NAND (TLC)500GB -
SamsungSamsung 970 PRO2018 · Samsung 64-layer 2-bit MLC V-NAND512GB -
SamsungSamsung X5 SSD2018 · Samsung 64-layer 3-bit MLC V-NAND (TLC)500GB, 1TB, 2TB -
SamsungSamsung 970 EVO Plus2019 · Samsung 96-layer 3-bit MLC V-NAND (TLC)250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB -
SamsungPM981a2020 · Samsung V-NAND V5256GB, 512GB, 1TB