Samsung unveils the first automotive SSD with PCIe 4.0, promises top speeds

Samsung has announced the industry’s first PCIe 4.0 automotive SSD, which is based on eighth generation V-NAND flash. It’s dubbed the AM9C1 and replaces the AM991 that came before it.

The key upgrades this generation are much improved power efficiency – by around 50% – and higher data transfer speeds. In a 256GB configuration, the new SSD can deliver sequential read speeds of up to 4,400 MB/s and sequential writes of 400MB/s.

That seems slow, but keep in mind that this SSD, like other automotive electronics, is optimized for endurance. This uses TLC flash (triple-level cells), but provides an SLC Namespace feature (single-level), which boosts sequential speeds to 4,700MB/s reads and 1,400MB/s writes, while also increasing reliability.

This does come at the cost of reduced capacity, though. The AM9C1 is currently being tested by key partners in a 256GB capacity, but Samsung will offer the SSD in capacities ranging from 128GB to 2TB. Mass production of the 2TB version is scheduled for early next year and it will be the largest automotive SSD on the market.

Like we said, reliability is key – per the AEC-Q100 Grade 2 standard, this SSD can deliver stable performance over an extreme temperature range of -40°C to 105°C (-40°F to 221°F).

“We are collaborating with global autonomous vehicle makers and providing high-performance, high-capacity automotive products. Samsung will continue to lead the Physical AI memory market that encompasses applications from autonomous driving to robotics technologies,” said Hyunduk Cho, Vice President and Head of Automotive Group at Samsung Electronics’ Memory Business.

Last year, Samsung started manufacturing automotive UFS 3.1 memory. This March, the company received an ASPICE CL3 authentication for that memory.

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