Far more likely is that the SSD controllers that WD-SanDisk will create (that are the value-add difference between commodity NAND and good SSDs) will now use RI

Far more likely is that the SSD controllers that WD-SanDisk will create (that are the value-add difference between commodity NAND and good SSDs) will now use RISC-V cores. Samsung has a 5-core controller in its drives; I would guess that licensing costs are a pretty hefty chunk of the BOM for creating the controller