Marvell Announces 88SS1079 SATA SSD Controller

While much of the focus for SSDs have shifted to M.2, PCIe and NVMe drives, a significant portion of the market remains int he SATA realm. Though they are not able to push the performance limits of NAND, the SATA market continues to bring the cost of SSDs down for the regular consumer. To better serve this market, Marvell has introduced their new 88SS1079 SATA SSD controller.

The 88SS1079 is pretty much a minor updated version of the popular 88SS1074 controller. The 88SS1074 has been used for TLC drives like the Crucial MX300, SanDisk X400 and WD Blue. The 88SS1079 is fundamentally the same 4 channel dual core controller. The changes are mostly to move components that were previously on the PCB onto the controller itself. This should manifest itself in cost savings and perhaps power efficiency gains.

According to Marvell, there are already several partner designs in the works. The first launches are expected around the middle of the year. At the very least, we can expect some of the current users of the 88SS1074 to move to the 88SS1079 as well. If they are firmware compatible, that would be even better. Hopefully, the new controller along with new NAND will help continue to push SSD prices lower.