Micron Launches First Quad-Port SSD to Accelerate Data-Intensive Autonomous Driving and AI Smart Car Workloads

On April 10, Beijing time, Micron Technology announced that it has started sampling its automotive-grade 4150AT SSD . As the world's first quad-port SSD[1], the product provides up to four system-on-chip (SoC) interfaces, enabling software -defined centralized storage for smart cars. The Micron 4150AT SSD combines several market-leading features, such as single-root input/output virtualization (SR-IOV), PCIe 4.0 interface, and rugged automotive-grade design. With these product features, the Micron automotive-grade 4150AT SSD will provide data center-level flexibility and powerful features to the automotive ecosystem.

Micron’s multi-port 4150AT SSD supports virtualization technology, enabling a new model for centralized decision-making in increasingly complex software-defined cars

“To achieve a higher level of autonomous driving safety, rich in-vehicle experiences featuring AI and advanced algorithms have placed higher demands on storage systems. To meet the needs of the times, a new automotive storage model has emerged,” said Michael Basca, vice president of Micron’s Embedded Products and Systems Division. “Micron has worked hand in hand with innovators who are redefining the next generation of automotive architectures to reimagine storage systems and launch the world’s first quad-port SSD, the Micron 4150AT, providing the flexibility and power needed to launch game-changing technologies in the automotive industry.”

The Micron 4150AT SSD brings enterprise-class speeds to consumer vehicles, achieving over 600,000 IOPS (input/output operations per second) and 100,000 IOPS of random read and random write speeds in 4KB transfers. As vehicles are faced with an increasing number of tasks that need to be processed simultaneously from different systems, such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), in-vehicle infotainment systems (IVI), and AI-enabled smart cockpits, the Micron 4150AT SSD[2] is ideal for the next generation of cars because of its high performance and ability to efficiently manage data streams from multiple SoCs simultaneously.

The Micron 4150AT SSD offers powerful customizability, inspired by data center SSDs but tailored to the challenges of next-generation automotive architectures with features including:

Multi-port support: As the first quad-port SSD in any end market[3], the Micron 4150AT SSD can connect to up to four SoCs, providing flexibility while enabling a single source of truth. For example, automotive OEMs can connect one port to an ADAS system and another port to an IVI system, with each port storing private data while also accessing common critical map data, thereby reducing the cost per GB of storage. This improves performance and eliminates storage bottlenecks by allowing both systems to access shared data simultaneously and with fewer redundant copies of data. In addition, the four ports provided by the Micron 4150AT SSD reduce the need for additional storage devices. Existing solutions in the market are often used in a single automotive system because they can only connect to a single SoC, resulting in unused capacity. To connect an SSD to multiple SoCs, OEMs must use expensive automotive-grade PCIe switches. By centralizing storage across multiple systems, the Micron 4150 SSD simplifies the architecture while significantly improving system efficiency.

· Support for virtualization: The Micron 4150AT SSD’s SR-IOV feature supports up to 64 virtual machines (VMs), providing high performance for heavy multi-host workloads. Unique virtualization technology provides isolated storage areas for a single SoC and its VMs, supporting local data processing while sharing a pool of storage to maximize efficiency. Support for multi-host workloads is critical as automotive SoCs increasingly use VMs to multitask different functions, including autonomous driving and car-to-car communication. The benefit of SR-IOV is that it directs the VM’s input/output (I/O) directly to the SSD hardware, in stark contrast to typical paravirtualization systems where I/O goes through a software hypervisor before being directed to the SSD, resulting in latency. By bypassing the software layer, the Micron 4150AT SSD can improve random read performance by up to three times[4].

Enhanced security: The Micron 4150AT SSD helps automakers improve safety performance thanks to its unique virtualization capabilities. Based on SR-IOV virtualization, the data of each virtual machine (VM) is isolated from other data in hardware, which can reduce data or code leakage and prevent hackers from attacking a single VM from endangering other VMs, thereby maintaining the privacy and security of critical data.

Customizable Endurance Modes: The Micron 4150AT SSD is built with triple-level cell (TLC) NAND, but can be configured to support single-level cell (SLC) and high-endurance (HE-SLC) data endurance groups, providing 20 times and 50 times more endurance than TLC, respectively, to better meet unique data processing needs. For example, the HE-SLC endurance group can be used for heavy write use cases such as black box continuous data logging, helping cars constantly re-record critical data from sensors, cameras and lidar. In this case, where data needs to be programmed and erased every few minutes, the HE-SLC mode can provide the required endurance without using more expensive volatile storage such as DRAM.

Designed for the demanding requirements of the automotive industry: The Micron 4150AT SSD supports the ASIL B level required by automotive safety systems and uses a ball grid array (BGA) package to withstand the shock and vibration that vehicles may encounter in harsh environments. Like all Micron automotive-grade solutions, this product can support a wide operating temperature range in the vehicle environment.

Micron has now sampled the 4150AT SSD to automotive customers around the world. With a capacity of up to 1.8 TB, the product will help the next generation of cars efficiently store AI algorithms, large language models, advanced infotainment and telemetry data. Micron will exhibit this SSD sample at booth 5-109 at the Embedded World International Exhibition in Nuremberg, Germany from April 9 to April 11.