Toshiba introduces new NVMe SSD design at Flash Memory Summit

At the Flash Memory Summit today, Toshiba unveiled a new NVMe SSD design that is small enough to replace soldered BGA SSDs. The new XFMEXPRESS form factor allows for two or four PCIe lanes while taking up much less space than the smallest M.2 22x30mm card size. The XFMEXPRESS card measures 18x14x1.4mm, making it larger and thicker than a microSD card. The footprint is a whopping 22.2x17.75x2.2mm. In comparison, the standard size of a BGA SSD is 11.5x13mm with a PCIe x2 interface or 16x20mm with a PCIe x4 interface.

XFMexpress is designed to bring the benefits of replaceable storage to devices that typically employ BGA SSDs or EMMC and UFS modules. For consumer devices, this opens the way for aftermarket capacity upgrades, and for embedded devices that need repairs, this can allow for a smaller overall size. Device manufacturers also gain some supply chain flexibility because storage capacity can be adjusted later in the assembly process. XFMexpress is not intended to be used as an externally accessible slot like an SD card; swapping out an XFMexpress SSD requires opening the outer casing of the device it's installed in, but unlike M.2 SSDs, the XFMexpress slot and retention mechanism itself do not require tools.

XFMEXPRESS hopes to allow similar performance to BGA SSDs. The PCIe x4 host interface is not usually a bottleneck, especially in the near future when BGA SSDs begin to adopt PCIe gen4, which the XFMEXPRESS connector can support. Conversely, these small form factor SSDs are usually thermally constrained, and the design of the XFMEXPRESS connector allows the metal cover to act as a heat sink to easily dissipate heat. Toshiba worked with Japan Aviation Electronics Industries, Ltd. (JAE) to develop and manufacture the XFMEXPRESS connector.