Product showcase

Before we can have a peek, we need to peel off the thermal sticker. We'll test with it applied though.  The compact M.2 2280 (2280 = 80 mm) form factor ensures compatibility with next-generation desktop and mobile platforms that support the M.2 PCIe slot and interface. The front-facing side holds the controller, four NAND chips and an DRAM chip (cache).

 
With the heatsink removed we see the top of the SSD, it also holds two NAND chips on the top side, two on the back, a Nanya DRAM cache chip (DDR3-1600 DRAM) sitting next to the Phison controller. Typically this is setup in a 1:1 fashion, so it should be a 512MB DRAM cache buffer.
  

 
The chip read out as a Phison Series 5008-E8 NVMe controller. While NVMe is great at 3 GB/sec on a x4 PCIe interface, not everybody needs it? Phison addressed that with the E8 series controllers. Pretty much the E8 series is a lower cost version of the current high-performance E7 series. Phison released two models, the PS5008-E8 with DRAM and as tested today, and a DRAM-less PS5008-E8T model. These are 4-channel controllers. Both E8 controllers make use of the PCI Express 3.0 x2 (and not x4) interface and support both your regular and vertically stacked NAND flash. The controller supports the latest SLC/MLC/TLC/QLC as well as the latest 3D (vertically stacked) NAND (64-layer BiCs). 

 
We have seen this NAND IC before, TA7AG55AiV. That would be a single package of 128GB (x4). TA, it is a Toshiba 15nm NAND flash memory, this time written at 3 bits per cell (TLC). You'll find four flash NAND packages.