4 ms·

What are the very obvious downsides to using these, lifetime or cost?

aavotins 10y ago
It's BGA, so it's soldered onto the motherboard/logic board. Non user upgradeable, and if the SSD dies, you're in for a costly repair. Another step in the direction of (very) disposable hardware with little to no service options.
- yitchelle 10y ago
  Does the other packages give you this ability? The other fine pitch parts are also very difficult to change over.
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    SATA, PCIe, and M.2 drives are trivial to replace.
  - aavotins 10y ago
    This is a chip that gets soldered directly on the board. While it is possible to solder this specific chip to a detachable interface that can be removed, I highly doubt anyone will ever do it. This form factor has a huge advantage for OEMs - they can just slap on a single chip that has everything built in - controller, memory management and the actual storage. Less parts = less convoluted assembly process and that is cheaper. While theoretically you can put a BGA fully integrated SSD SOC like this on a PCI-E card or M2 etc., it kinda beats the purpose.
    - yitchelle 10y ago
      Personally, I think BGA parts are great. They are small and quite robust mechanically an highly integrated (as you have said). I did my early engineering years with DIP parts, the days of when you could just desolder the memory device and place with a higher density device are long gone.
- nl 10y ago
  This isn't necessarily the case. The article explicitly talks about physical standards for putting them on M.2 cards, and how some are already shipping on M.2 and PCI-E form factors.
- noselasd 10y ago
  Surely someone can solder it onto an USB stick, SATA interface, etc. with the added circuitry of supporting those interfaces.
dogma1138 10y ago
Probably both at first, but eventually there will be no downsides everything moves move into single ASIC/SOC eventually. If you can get your memory density high enough there is no need for multiple chips, if there is no need for multiple memory chips then a discrete controller doesn't makes sense since it only needs to communicate with a single chip in that case the extra die costs can easily be canceled out by cheaper packaging costs and the fact that you can now sell SSD's to system integrators that could not use them before.
- pjc50 10y ago
  That page says "BGA SSD not only integrates NAND flash memory, but also a NAND controller, DRAM" - which makes sense as they need 3 different types of different silicon processing. We're not quite at the stage of putting the controller in the chipset and just soldering Flash to the board for PCs, although that is how it's done for SoC systems.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Most dies already have to go through multiple processes even when it's not a SOC/CPU so I don't think the extra cost is that high. You are saving money on binning and packaging costs, and multi die packages are also a possibility if you want to make low cost BGA parts with less performance.
pjc50 10y ago
Apart from being soldered to the board? Not much, I suspect; the tiny form factor probably keeps costs down. It'll be several chips wirebonded together. It's essentially a microSD card with BGA pins.
- chx 10y ago
  I dunno, at least initially this could be the first M.2 2240 PCIe SSD. As far as I am aware currently you can only buy M.2 2280 PCIe SSDs. That's a significant savings in space. Alternatively -- for example an ATX motherboard -- could offer two sockets where previously only one would've fit. The Intel 200 series chipsets for Kaby Lake happens to raise the number of PCIe lanes by 4, how fortunate!
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  > Apart from being soldered to the board? That should be an absolute dealbreaker, though. Talk about holding your data hostage...
  - pjc50 10y ago
    Why is that a dealbreaker? If you don't want your data held hostage to fortune you back it up.
    - Nullabillity 10y ago
      Backups and being able to access the disk don't cover the same area. If they used the same standard connectors as everyone else ever, you could take it and stick it into another computer and be up and running again, in a total of 5 minutes. Backups are rarely that comprehensive. Also, get real, most people don't have any backups set up at all. They still shouldn't be artificially prevented from accessing their data in case of a failure...
- userbinator 10y ago
  It's essentially a microSD card with BGA pins Also known as eMMC.

It's BGA, so it's soldered onto the motherboard/logic board. Non user upgradeable, and if the SSD dies, you're in for a costly repair. Another step in the direction of (very) disposable hardware with little to no service options.

yitchelle 10y ago
Does the other packages give you this ability? The other fine pitch parts are also very difficult to change over.
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  SATA, PCIe, and M.2 drives are trivial to replace.
- aavotins 10y ago
  This is a chip that gets soldered directly on the board. While it is possible to solder this specific chip to a detachable interface that can be removed, I highly doubt anyone will ever do it. This form factor has a huge advantage for OEMs - they can just slap on a single chip that has everything built in - controller, memory management and the actual storage. Less parts = less convoluted assembly process and that is cheaper. While theoretically you can put a BGA fully integrated SSD SOC like this on a PCI-E card or M2 etc., it kinda beats the purpose.
  - yitchelle 10y ago
    Personally, I think BGA parts are great. They are small and quite robust mechanically an highly integrated (as you have said). I did my early engineering years with DIP parts, the days of when you could just desolder the memory device and place with a higher density device are long gone.
nl 10y ago
This isn't necessarily the case. The article explicitly talks about physical standards for putting them on M.2 cards, and how some are already shipping on M.2 and PCI-E form factors.
noselasd 10y ago
Surely someone can solder it onto an USB stick, SATA interface, etc. with the added circuitry of supporting those interfaces.

dogma1138 10y ago

Probably both at first, but eventually there will be no downsides everything moves move into single ASIC/SOC eventually. If you can get your memory density high enough there is no need for multiple chips, if there is no need for multiple memory chips then a discrete controller doesn't makes sense since it only needs to communicate with a single chip in that case the extra die costs can easily be canceled out by cheaper packaging costs and the fact that you can now sell SSD's to system integrators that could not use them before.

pjc50 10y ago
That page says "BGA SSD not only integrates NAND flash memory, but also a NAND controller, DRAM" - which makes sense as they need 3 different types of different silicon processing. We're not quite at the stage of putting the controller in the chipset and just soldering Flash to the board for PCs, although that is how it's done for SoC systems.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Most dies already have to go through multiple processes even when it's not a SOC/CPU so I don't think the extra cost is that high. You are saving money on binning and packaging costs, and multi die packages are also a possibility if you want to make low cost BGA parts with less performance.

pjc50 10y ago

Apart from being soldered to the board? Not much, I suspect; the tiny form factor probably keeps costs down. It'll be several chips wirebonded together. It's essentially a microSD card with BGA pins.

chx 10y ago
I dunno, at least initially this could be the first M.2 2240 PCIe SSD. As far as I am aware currently you can only buy M.2 2280 PCIe SSDs. That's a significant savings in space. Alternatively -- for example an ATX motherboard -- could offer two sockets where previously only one would've fit. The Intel 200 series chipsets for Kaby Lake happens to raise the number of PCIe lanes by 4, how fortunate!
Nullabillity 10y ago
> Apart from being soldered to the board? That should be an absolute dealbreaker, though. Talk about holding your data hostage...
- pjc50 10y ago
  Why is that a dealbreaker? If you don't want your data held hostage to fortune you back it up.
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    Backups and being able to access the disk don't cover the same area. If they used the same standard connectors as everyone else ever, you could take it and stick it into another computer and be up and running again, in a total of 5 minutes. Backups are rarely that comprehensive. Also, get real, most people don't have any backups set up at all. They still shouldn't be artificially prevented from accessing their data in case of a failure...
userbinator 10y ago
It's essentially a microSD card with BGA pins Also known as eMMC.