Why SSD Prices Matter So Much For PC Gamers
If you have built or upgraded a gaming PC recently, you have probably noticed how expensive high capacity SSDs have become. Drives that used to be comfortably under the 250 dollar mark are now almost double the price, especially in the 4 TB range and above. That hurts when modern games can easily chew through hundreds of gigabytes each.
Most gaming SSDs today use one of two main types of NAND flash memory: TLC and QLC. TLC, or Triple Level Cell, is faster and more durable but more expensive per gigabyte. QLC, or Quad Level Cell, fits more data into the same physical space which makes it cheaper per gigabyte, but it is slower and less robust over time.
The industry has been looking for the next step in this progression and that is where PLC, or Penta Level Cell flash, comes in. If it can be made practical, PLC could pack even more bits into each memory cell which could eventually drag SSD prices back down to a more gamer friendly level.
From SLC To PLC How Flash Cells Store Your Game Library
NAND flash storage works by storing electric charge in tiny cells. The presence or absence of charge represents digital information. The trick is how many different charge levels a chip can reliably distinguish.
SLC or Single Level Cell has just two states. Charge or no charge. That is one bit per cell. It is very fast and durable but needs lots of cells for large capacity, so it is expensive.
TLC uses three bits per cell which means eight possible charge levels. Great for consumer SSDs because it balances speed, endurance, and cost.
QLC pushes that to four bits per cell with sixteen charge levels. You get more capacity for the same silicon area, but reads and writes are slower and endurance drops.
PLC would use five bits per cell. That is thirty two different charge states that must be written and read accurately.
As you add more bits per cell, the voltage steps between each state get smaller. The controller has to detect tiny differences in voltage which takes more time and is easier to get wrong. That means slower performance, higher error rates, and lower lifespan. Up to now, those drawbacks have made PLC impractical for mainstream SSDs.
SK Hynix Split Cell Trick And What It Means For Future SSDs
Several big memory makers including Intel, Toshiba, and SK Hynix have been exploring PLC for years, but it has mostly been a lab project. According to recent reporting, SK Hynix may have found a way to make PLC flash commercially realistic by rethinking how each cell is designed.
Instead of one cell trying to juggle all thirty one voltage steps required for five bits, SK Hynix proposes splitting each cell into two halves. Each half only has to handle six voltage levels. When you combine the readings from both halves, you get a total of thirty six possible voltage combinations. That is more than enough to represent the thirty two states needed for five bits of data.
In simple terms, it is like squeezing two almost TLC style halves into one physical cell. Each half only has to manage a small number of clearly separated voltage states, which should make reading and writing more reliable and faster than a traditional PLC design. Yet together they still deliver the density benefits of five bits per cell.
This clever approach does come with a catch. Splitting cells and coordinating two halves instead of one means more complex circuitry and manufacturing steps. That can increase production cost. The big question is whether the extra complexity is outweighed by the capacity gains and how well the design scales when you start shipping millions of drives.
SK Hynix is well placed to push this forward. The company is one of the largest NAND flash manufacturers in the world, second only to Samsung. If anyone can turn a complicated memory design into a mass market product at a decent cost, it is a player of this size.
What This Could Mean For Your Next Gaming SSD
Right now, gamers are stuck in an awkward spot. Game file sizes keep growing, we want fast NVMe SSDs for shorter load times and smoother open world streaming, but the price of large drives has climbed sharply. A 4 TB PCIe SSD that used to be a pretty good deal can now be almost twice the price.
The hope is that PLC based NAND like SK Hynix split cell design will eventually give manufacturers much higher storage density at the chip level. More bits per wafer usually translates into lower cost per gigabyte once the tech matures. That is exactly what happened as the industry moved from SLC to MLC to TLC and then to QLC.
There are some important caveats though.
PLC SSDs are not about to show up in gaming PCs next month. The technology still needs to be finalized, validated, and integrated into controllers and firmware that can handle the new behavior reliably.
The first generations of PLC are likely to target data centers and AI workloads, where there is massive demand for cheap, high capacity flash and buyers can pay for cutting edge tech.
Only after volumes ramp up and the process matures will we likely see PLC filtered down into consumer and gaming drives.
The interesting twist is that the same AI boom that has pushed SSD and memory prices up might actually accelerate the development of denser flash like PLC. Data centers urgently want more terabytes in the same rack space. That demand gives companies like SK Hynix a strong financial incentive to invest in new designs and new fabs.
If SK Hynix solution works and other manufacturers follow with their own approaches, the long term result could be a return to more sensible pricing for large gaming SSDs. You might once again be able to grab a 4 TB or even 8 TB NVMe drive without wrecking your whole upgrade budget.
For now, the situation is still tough if you want a big, fast drive for your gaming rig. But behind the scenes, the flash industry is working to squeeze more capacity into each chip. PLC with split cells is one of the most promising paths to cheaper, roomier SSDs in the next wave of PC storage.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/ssds/sk-hynixs-unique-way-of-chopping-cells-in-two-is-a-big-step-in-making-plc-flash-memory-chips-viable-and-could-offer-a-solution-to-ballooning-ssd-prices/
