Solid-State Drives 2023

 Acer, Adata, Adtec, AMD, Amp Inc., Apacer, Apdate, Aplicata, Apple, Applied Materials, APRO, Asine, Asus, Atos, ATP, Avant, Axiom, Baidu, Bigboy, Biwin, Biostar, Broadcom, Buffalo, Burlywood, Cactus, Centon, Cervoz, Chipstark, Cisco, Colorful, Corsair, Crucial, Curvature, CXMT, DapuStor, Delkin, Dell, Dera, Edge Memory, Elecom, EmBestor, Emphase,  Emtec, Essencore, Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES), Exascend, Fadu, Flexxon, Foremay, Fortasa,  Fujifilm, G.Skill, Galax, Gigabyte, GigaDevice, GlobalFoundries, Goodram, Greenliant, GS Nanotec, G.Skill, Hagiwara, Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE), HiKVision, Hitachi, Huawei,  IBM, ICP, IEI Integration Corp., Imation, IMSolution, Innogrit, InnoDisk, Inspur, Integral Memory, Inspur, Intel, I-O Data Device, Jet One, JetIO Technology, J&A, Kimtigo, KingDian, KingFast, KingMax, KingSpec, Kingston, Kioxia, KLA, Lacie, Lam Research, Legacy,  Lenovo, Liqid Longsys, Macronix, Marvell, MaxLinear, Memblaze, MemxPro, Mercury, Meta, Microchip, Micron, Microsemi, Minerva, Montage, Mushkin, MyDigitalSSD, Myung, Netac Technology, NetApp, Netlist, NGD, Nimbus, Novachips, Oracle, Optiarc, Origin Storage, Ortial, OWC, Patriot Memory, Pancun, PaxDisk, PetaIO, Phison, Phoenix, Plextor, PNY, Powev, PQI, Princeton Technology, Pretec, Promise, PureStorage, Qnap, Ramaxel, Rambus, Recadata, Renice, Ritek, RunCore, Sabrent, Sage, Samsung, ScaleFlux, Seagate, Secure Drives, Shannon Systems, SiliconGo, Silicon Motion, Silicon Power, SK hynix, Smart IOPS, SMART Modular, SMIC, Solid Access, Solidigm, Soligen, Sony, Starblaze, Storageflex, Super Talent, Swissbit, Synology, Targa Systems, TenaFe, Team Group, Telecommunication Systems, TenaFe, Transcend, TSMC, TwinMOS, Ulike Design, UMC, Union Memory, Unigen, V7, Verbatim, Viking Technology, Virtium, Waitan, Western Digital, Wilk Electronik (Goodram), Winbond, Wintec Industries, X-Phy, XPC, XPG, Yeestor, Yingluodi, YMTC, Xmore, Zadak, Zotac, and more.

SSD revenues dropped by ~14% in 2022. The outlook for 2023 is worrisome, but long-term perspectives to 2028 are very attractive.

The NAND flash memory market dynamic was positive in 2021 and the first months of 2022. However, several simultaneous macroeconomic trends, including global inflation, geopolitical tensions, and electronics manufacturer inventory digestion, have led to demand slowing dramatically. Consequently, 2022 was a bad year for solid-state drives (SSDs). We estimate an approximately ~14% Year-over-Year decline compared to 2021, to $29B from $34B. The outlook for 2023 is worrisome as slow inventory digestion and weak economy will persist, leading to significant near-term oversupply and therefore, a lower pricing outlook. For the long-term, we estimate that the total SSD market size will increase from $29B in 2022 to $67B in 2028, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate for 2022-2028 (CAGR22-28) of approximately 15%. However, the situation will be very different between the client market including desktop, notebook, channel distribution and gaming systems, and the enterprise market, including server- and storage-attached drives. Client products will experience a weak demand in coming years. Enterprise-SSD growth will be driven by low-latency storage needs of advanced workloads in the data center space.

IDMs have a leading role in both the SSD and the SSD controller markets.

Two main types of SSD suppliers can be distinguished. NAND Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs) sell self-branded drives into the client and enterprise markets. Third-party SSD manufacturers buy NAND wafers or NAND chips from IDMs and manufacture their own drives. SSD suppliers sell SSDs to final customers including electronics manufacturers, large cloud service providers and channel distribution. The IDM-controller market was 82% of the total SSD market in 2022 and is led by Samsung, Kioxia, Western Digital, Micron, SK hynix, and Solidigm. The third-party market is led by Kingston, Seagate, and ADATA.

In the controller market, most IDMs have internal teams for leading-edge SSD controller design. Their chips are used inside their self-branded SSDs or in SSDs sold by their subsidiary brands such as the Crucial brand that belongs to Micron. On the other hand, SSD controller suppliers provide chips to both IDMs and third-party SSD manufacturers leveraging high degrees of specialization and optimizing design costs to maximize the returns on investment. This market is dominated by Silicon Motion, Phison, and Marvell.

Note: some large electronics manufacturers and large cloud service providers also buy NAND wafers from IDMs and manufacture SSDs leveraging services from OSATs, ODMs, and third-party SSD suppliers. The resulting SSDs are used in their own storage products.

SSDs and PCIe: the perfect match 

Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) is a communication protocol for transporting data for optimized storage in NAND flash that runs on the PCIe interface. The introduction of a new version of the protocol, along with new PCIe generations enable further growth of the SSD market. In 2022, PCIe SSDs represented ~55% (30 Munits) of the Enterprise SSD shipments. We expect this share to increase to ~71% or 79 Munits by 2028. As for PCIe Client SSDs, their share will rise from around 85% in 2021 to  around 96% in 2028, which is 252 Munits versus 347 Munits, respectively.

The first PCIe 5.0 SSDs were released in 2022 for the enterprise market. In this space, PCIe 5.0 will overtake PCIe 4.0 in 2026. As for PCIe 5.0 client SSDs, the first commercial drives are expected to hit the market by the end of 2023 or early 2024. They will be first targeting gaming and workstation applications as high-end client SSDs. However, given weak consumer demand, PCIe 5.0 SSDs are not expected to be the most important for client applications, at least until 2028.

Solid-State Drives 2023

Glossary

Report objectives

Scope of the report

Methodologies & definition

About the authors

Companies cited in this report

3-page summary

Executive summary

Market forecasts 

• SSD forecasts – overview
• Enterprise SSD forecasts 
• Client SSD forecasts 
• SSD controller forecasts 

Context – overview of the memory business 

Market drivers and Trends 

• Data centers - focus on enterprise SSDs 
• Personal computers – focus on client SSDs

Technology trends 

• SSD form factors and interfaces 
• SSD controllers 
• Emerging memory & storage trends 
  • Computer Express Link (CXL) – overview 
  • Storage Class Memory (SCM) 
  • Computational Storage Drives (CSD) 
  • DNA data storage – overview 

Player dynamics and supply chain

• SSDs – players and market overview 
• SSD controllers- players and market overview
• Mergers & acquisitions and industry news
• Supply chain 

General conclusions

Appendix – definitions and taxonomy

About Yole Group 

Yole Group Corporate Presentation 

Key Features

• Description of SSD technologies and market forecasts in terms of form factors (e.g., 2.5”/U.2, mSATA/M.2, BGA, EDSFF, AIC/Other) and interfaces (e.g., SAS, SATA (AHCI), PCIe (NVMe)) for enterprise and client applications.
• Additional analysis is provided for the interface mix of the diverse PCIe generations.
• Description and market forecast on SSD controllers by SSD interfaces.
• Description of the SSD supply chain and the players’ dynamics.
• Insights on key technology trends including Compute-Express Link (CXL), Storage Class Memory (SCM), Computational Storage Drives (CSD) and DNA-Based storage.

Product objectives

After the “DRAM Modules 2023” report, Yole Intelligence is glad to provide you with the brand-new memory report “Solid-State Drives (SSDs) 2023”. It offers a detailed technology and market analysis of SSDs for client and enterprise, classified by form factor and interface. The main objectives of this report are as follows: 

• Deliver an in-depth analysis of SSD technologies and their markets. 
• Present the SSD controller market and its technology trends. 
• Offer 2021-2028 market forecast for SSDs and SSD controllers. 
• Describe the SSD ecosystem and the player dynamics. 
• Present key technology trends offering growth opportunities for the DRAM-module industry.