The automotive industry’s first PCIe 4.0 automotive SSD, based on eighth-generation vertical NAND, has been developed by Samsung. The company says that the AM9C1 is an ideal solution for AI capabilities in automotive applications.
In contrast to its predecessor, AM991, the new SSD is 50% more power efficient and will deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 400MB/s. Based on Samsung’s 5nm controller providing a single-level cell (SLC) namespace feature, the SSD offers high performance for easier access to large files.
By switching from its original triple-level cell state to SLC mode, users can enjoy boosted read and write speeds of up to 4,700MB/s and 1,400MB/s, respectively, while also benefiting from the added reliability of SLC SSDs.
“We are collaborating with global autonomous vehicle makers and providing high-performance, high-capacity automotive products,” said Hyunduk Cho, vice president and head of the automotive group at Samsung Electronics’ memory business.
The new 256GB AM9C1 is currently being tested by key partners and is expected to begin mass production by the end of this year. Samsung plans to offer multiple storage capacities for the AM9C1 ranging from 128GB to 2TB to address the growing demand for automotive SSDs. The 2TB model is scheduled to begin mass production early next year.
Samsung’s new auto SSD complies with the automotive semiconductor quality standard AEC-Q100 Grade 2, ensuring stable performance over a wide temperature range of -40°C to 105°C.