Silicon Motion SM2258

The Silicon Motion SM2258 is a SATA 6 Gb/s SSD controller designed for client SSDs targeting HDD replacement, ultrabooks, and tablets. It is a 4-channel design with up to 8 chip-enables per channel, built around a 32-bit RISC CPU with a 64-bit system bus, and a 16-bit DDR3/DDR3L DRAM interface.

Its primary focus is 3D TLC NAND support, underpinned by Silicon Motion's proprietary NANDXtend™ ECC technology, which Silicon Motion claims triples P/E cycle endurance for 3D TLC devices compared to conventional ECC. The controller also implements Direct-to-TLC and SLC Caching algorithms for sustained write performance, along with StaticDataRefresh™ for long-term data integrity and global wear leveling. It supports 1z nm planar TLC as well as 3D MLC/TLC NAND from all major suppliers via ONFI 3.0, Toggle 2.0, and asynchronous interfaces.

Specified performance with IMFT 3D TLC NAND reaches 560 MB/s sequential read, 520 MB/s sequential write, 90,000 IOPS random read, and 80,000 IOPS random write. The controller is SATA Revision 3.1 compliant, supports Native Command Queuing up to 32 commands, TRIM, S.M.A.R.T., and DevSleep. Security features include real-time AES encryption, TCG Opal protocol, hardware SHA-256, and a true random number generator (TRNG). It is available in commercial (0–70°C) and industrial (−40–85°C) grades.

The Crucial MX500 is among the drives in this database using the SM2258.