NAND flash chip controller maker Phison Electronics has seen its sales grow robustly in 2014. And under the leadership of its chairman Khein-Seng Pua, the company has initiated a restructuring plan, dubbed "Phison 2.0" that will drive it to focus on SSD products for sustainable growth.

Pua revealed more details about Phison's restructuring plan and SSD product roadmap in a recent interview with Digitimes.

Q: Would SSD devices be able to largely replace traditional hard disc drives (HDDs) in 2015?

A: I think 128GB/256GB SSD devices will replace traditional HDDs as the basic memory standards for notebooks in 2015-2016 when prices of TLC (triple-level cell) NAND flash chips reach a satisfactory level.

Consumers will opt to buy a 256GB SSD if its unit price drops to around US$60. Additionally, the rising popularity of Chromebooks will also help boost sales of low-capacity SSD drives.

In addition to the consumer electronics segment, there are two other niche markets for SSD applications. One is the industrial PC sector, where SSD drives have already replaced HDDs as main memory interfaces. The other is the cloud-end data center and server sector where PCI-e SSDs will also become the major memory products.

Q: What is your strategy for the SSD product line?

A: The SSD market can be divided into three segments: OEM, retail and industrial control. Phison is clearly not going to get involved in the OEM market because it is the market where you have to cooperate with PC makers, with whom our strategic partners such as Toshiba and Kingston Technology are currently working with. As a result, we will focus on retain channels and industrial controls, and particularly the customized market in the industrial control segment.

Q: What are your shipments of SSD devices and eMMC chips?

A: Shipments of our SSD products reached an all-time high of 230,000 units in October 2014, and combined with SSD controller chips we expect our monthly shipments of SSD devices to top one million units by March 2015. We have been promoting our SSD controller chips with Toshiba and Kingston and have also begun strengthening our deployments in retail channels and customized industrial control market.

Shipments of eMMC chips are expected to total 350,000 units in the fourth quarter of 2014 and double to 700,000 units in the first quarter of 2015 as cooperation between Kingston Solutions (KSI) and Toshiba as well as Micron Technology has been smooth.

Meanwhile, our shipments of traditional flash memory cards reached a record high in terms of total memory capacity in October.

Q: What is your roadmap for new SSD controller chips?

A: Following the release of PS3108 and PS3109 controller chips, we are preparing to roll out new models, including PS3110, 3111, and 5007 soon. The PS3110 supports quad-core CPUs and will be built at United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) using a 55nm manufacturing process.

The PS3110 also has a complete data path protection providing fault-tolerant design and with smart ECC debug functionality. The chip supports NAND flash chips from Samsung Electronics, Micron Technology, Toshiba, SanDisk, SK Hynix and Intel.

Additionally, the PS3110 will support MLC NAND flash chips initially and will support TLC NAND flash later.

The PS5007 targets the PCI-e SSD market, featuring an 8-core architecture and supports Gen 3x4 standard and will be fabricated on a 28nm process at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). The chip will be delivered for validation in January 2015 and become a built-in component for PC systems in mid-2015.

Q: What are the prospects for SSD and PCIe SSD devices?

A: PCIe-SSD devices are set to become mainstream technology in the future as the transmission speeds of SATA III SSD devices are expected to reach their limits soon. I expect shipments of PCIe SSDs to start gaining momentum in the second half of 2015, paving the way for them to become the mainstream in 2016.

Despite declining prices of SSDs in 2014, the penetration rate of SSDs in the notebook sector will reach only 5-10% in the year. However, the penetration rate is expected to reach 40-50% in the third quarter of 2015, and SSDs will replace traditional HHDs at the time when the unit price of 256GB SSDs dips to US$60.