Toshiba Unveils Single-Chip BG3 NVMe SSD With Up to 1.5GB/s Transfers At SATA-Like Prices

Toshiba has announced and new ultra-compact storage solution that is designed specifically for mobile computing and IoT devices. The compact size and power efficiency of the new Toshiba single-package BG3 NVMe SSDs make them perfect for applications where power efficiency and package size are very important. The new BG3 NVMe SSDs use a next-gen single-package ball grid array (BGA) design that is absolutely tiny.

"Toshiba’s third generation BG SSDs were designed to not spark, but fuel a revolution in mobile and IoT computing," said Jeremy Werner, vice president SSD marketing and product planning at Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. "The BG3 series is not only smaller and lighter, but smarter thanks to its cost-effective DRAM-less design with HMB technology combined with Toshiba 64-layer 3D flash memory with TLC technology. These SSDs enable OEMs to reimagine what's possible for their customers." 

The SSDs are based on the latest Toshiba 64-layer, 3-bit-per-cell TLC BiCS FLASH, giving them better performance and a smaller footprint than a traditional SATA-based SSD. Toshiba says that its BG3 line also has a fraction of the power needs of older NVMe SSDs and the BG3 family uses a more cost-effective DRAM-less design.

To maintain high performance without resorting to integrated DRAM, Toshiba took advantage of the Host Memory Buffer (HMB) in NVMe Revision 1.2.1. That allows the SSDs to use host memory for flash management purposes. Toshiba says that taking advantage of these features allowed it to gain the performance of an NVMe storage device and maximize the footprint and affordability of the BG3 family.

While Toshiba says these are for mobile computing devices and IoT devices, the company will also find use for the new miniaturized SSDs in datacenter and enterprise applications as an alternative solution for server boot storage. The compact design will allow for tablet makers to design slimmer and more power efficient devices, the BG3 SSD line is the world's thinnest SSD solution right now with a height of 1.3mm.

BG3 devices promise very impressive performance for storage needs with up to 1520 MB/s sequential reads, which is 2.7 times faster than the theoretical max bandwidth for SATA 6Gbit/s devices. Sequential writes are up to 840 MB/s for 1.5 times the theoretical maximum bandwidth of a SATA 6Gbit/s device. Toshiba will offer these BG3 SSDs in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities. The three capacities will be offered in surface-mount BGA M.2 1620 and removable module M.2 2230 form factors.