How the world's first four-port SSD will drive changes in smart car architecture

Shift to centralized architecture

Today, automobiles are moving from traditional domain-distributed architectures to partitioned architectures that simplify design through centralized decision-making. In fact, McKinsey predicts that by 2030, the proportion of global cars using partitioned architecture will reach approximately 18% and will continue to grow.

Within the existing domain architecture, in-car systems are grouped according to their functions, such as in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), connectivity, powertrain, etc. While this approach once worked, as automotive systems become increasingly complex, the number of sensors, cameras and electronic devices has grown exponentially, with some cars having as many as 150 electronic control units (ECUs). This makes wiring layout more complex and cumbersome, increasing cost and vehicle weight.

Zoned architecture simplifies how electronic devices are connected by effectively grouping systems and devices within physical areas near electronic controllers (ECUs). Local controllers in these areas are connected to a central high-performance computer cluster similar to data center servers, and high-end cars can be equipped with up to four systems on a chip (SoC). At present, the development of many new models has planned to adopt this centralized architecture, but existing automotive storage solutions are not enough to support such a large number of SoCs and it is difficult to achieve ideal system efficiency.

Previous architectural solutions

To solve the above problems, we launched a new model of automotive storage - Micron 4150AT SSD. This SSD not only has the flexibility and scalability of data center SSDs, but also expands the common dual-port functions in data centers. It is the first four-port SSD in any end market and integrates powerful single-root input/output virtualization. ization (SR-IOV) function. These breakthrough product features will drive the automotive industry towards centralized architecture design, bringing better intelligence and safety performance. Let’s understand the principles and motivations together.

SSD specially built for new era smart cars

The integration of multi-port SSD and SR-IOV technology provides a powerful solution for managing data isolation and data sharing simultaneously. Each port of the 4150AT SSD can be connected to the SoC and can support up to 16 virtual machines (VMs), enabling precise control over data access.

The 4150AT SSD's four ports provide multiple independent data channels for simultaneous communication with the host system. These ports can be assigned to support different virtual machines or workloads to ensure strict isolation of data flows. Whether it's latency-sensitive applications or high-throughput workloads, multi-port SSDs provide the flexibility you need to reduce time to insight.

Additionally, with SR-IOV technology, the 4150AT SSD is able to support up to dozens of virtual machines , a capability that is critical considering today's heavy-duty SoCs are increasingly adopting virtualization to perform multitasking. It is worth noting that each virtual machine can have its own independent storage area or namespace for storing and accessing data, and can also share a data pool with other virtual machines. This system architecture selectively allocates ports to ensure critical data remains isolated while enabling efficient data sharing when necessary. A proprietary namespace combined with SR-IOV ensures that only virtual machines or hosts connected to the namespace can access data, ensuring the privacy and security of critical data. Whether in the cloud, edge computing or data center, this approach enables precise storage management.

Micron has always put security first when designing the 4150AT SSD, equipping it with the latest device-level protection and security features, including hardware-level data encryption, device authentication, secure boot and cryptographically signed firmware.

Improving the architectural efficiency of modern vehicles

How does everything we do contribute to a centralized architecture? Since current storage solutions can typically only connect to a single SoC, storage can only be targeted to a specific domain or function, such as IVI, ADAS or connected systems. This limitation sometimes causes the design team to spend a lot of time and effort and make the necessary compromises to fit the code into the existing storage space and avoid doubling the capacity (for example, from 512 GB to 1 TB). But sometimes there is unused or idle capacity in the storage device for a function (such as IVI) that could be used by other SoCs for ADAS or connectivity. The Micron 4150AT SSD replaces up to four storage devices, significantly improving efficiency while streamlining the architecture to lower total cost of ownership and cost per gigabyte of storage.

Another way to achieve shared storage across SoCs is to rely on expensive automotive-grade PCIe switches to connect SSDs to multiple SoCs. This approach typically consumes more power and takes up valuable board space. The 4150AT SSD's multi-port capability eliminates the need for switches, providing automakers with greater design flexibility while helping to reduce operating temperatures and power consumption.

The 4150AT SSD can connect multiple SoCs, reducing redundant data copies, thereby significantly saving costs. For example, a city's navigation data can be as high as 100GB and is usually shared between ADAS and IVI systems. Current automotive storage solutions need to save at least two copies of this data, while also binding local storage to all SoCs. If it is navigation in multiple cities, hundreds of GB of unnecessary data will be generated, resulting in economic and space/capacity waste. The introduction of the 4150AT SSD will completely change this situation.

Start from scratch to protect the earth

At present, the breakthrough advantages brought by Micron's latest automotive SSD are obvious. What’s even more exciting is that the shift to a centralized architecture will benefit us at a macro level. According to research by Vicor Power, the partitioned architecture can increase the range of electric vehicles by 4,000 miles (approximately 6,437 kilometers) per year and reduce vehicle weight by up to 40 pounds (approximately 18 kilograms) compared to traditional architectures by reducing weight through simplified wiring. For fuel vehicles, the partitioned architecture can improve fuel efficiency (thus saving gas money) and help significantly reduce carbon emissions in an environment where global warming is accelerating. In the face of severe climate change, every bit of energy savings is crucial. We look forward to the automotive ecosystem being equipped with Micron 4150AT SSD to create lighter, simpler, and more environmentally friendly cars.

A new era car for the future

New problems require new solutions. To this end, Micron redesigned automotive storage and launched the world's first four-port 4150AT SSD. Its multi-port and SR-IOV virtualization technology brings unprecedented flexibility and power to the automotive ecosystem to easily handle increasingly complex automotive data workloads. As generative AI and fully autonomous driving technologies accelerate in future cars, the scale and complexity of automotive data workloads continue to increase. The 4150AT SSD supports a centralized architecture, bringing scalable and sustainable new options to the automotive ecosystem, helping the industry embrace disruptive technologies and create greener future cars. For automakers, Micron's 4150AT SSD's small form factor and powerful performance can help the automotive ecosystem reimagine and design future cars, creating endless possibilities. The exciting journey has just begun, and as they say, what matters is the process, not the destination.

Author of this article

Puneet Sharma