TAIPEI, Taiwan - Silicon Motion Technology has introduced the SM2524XT, a PCIe Gen5 DRAMless solid-state drive controller designed to improve storage performance for artificial intelligence inference and key-value (KV) cache-intensive workloads.

The controller features a four-core architecture, PCIe Gen5 x4 connectivity, and NAND interface speeds of up to 4,800 MT/s. According to the company, the SM2524XT delivers sequential read speeds of up to 14 GB/s and random performance of up to 2.5 million IOPS.

Built on TSMC's 6-nanometer process technology, the controller is designed to improve performance-per-watt while maintaining throughput under power- and thermally constrained operating conditions. Silicon Motion said the device provides up to 25% higher performance per watt and up to 25% higher random performance than its previous-generation controller.

The company said the controller was developed to address the storage demands of AI PCs and on-device large language model applications, where KV cache operations generate large volumes of latency-sensitive random read and write transactions.

To improve performance during sustained AI workloads, the SM2524XT incorporates Silicon Motion's Separated Command Address technology, flash translation layer scheduling techniques, and NANDXtend LDPC error-correction technology. The company said the technologies are intended to increase the efficiency of parallel data processing, reduce latency interruptions, and maintain consistent performance during continuous inference operations.

While SSD controllers have traditionally been evaluated based on sequential throughput and capacity, AI inference applications are driving greater emphasis on sustained random-access performance and low-latency data movement between storage and compute resources.

Silicon Motion is a supplier of NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices in client, enterprise, industrial, and automotive applications.

For more information, please visit www.siliconmotion.com.