Phison Electronics Corporation () is a Taiwanese public

electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

company that primarily designs, manufactures and sells controllers for

NAND flash Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...

memory

chip Chip may refer to: Food * Chip (snack), thinly sliced and deep-fried gastro item ** Potato chips (US) or crisp (UK) * Chips (fried potato strips) (UK) or french fries (US) (common as a takeout side) * Game chips, thin chip/French fries * Choco ...

s. These are integrated into flash-based products such as

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

flash drive A flash drive is a portable computer drive that uses flash memory. Flash drives are the larger memory modules consisting of a number of flash chips. A flash chip is used to read the contents of a single cell, but it can write entire block of ce ...

memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices, such as digital cameras as well as in many early games conso ...

s, and

solid-state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a type of solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuits to store data persistently. It is sometimes called semiconductor storage device, solid-state device, or solid-state disk. SSDs rely on non- ...

s (SSDs). Phison is a member of the

Open NAND Flash Interface Working Group The Open NAND Flash Interface Working Group (ONFI or ONFi with a lower case "i") is a consortium of technology companies working to develop open standards for NAND flash memory and devices that communicate with them. The formation of ONFI was ...

(ONFI), which aims to standardize the hardware interface to NAND flash chips.

History

Phison was founded in 2000 by Datuk Pua Khein Seng and four others. Phison claims to have produced the earliest single-chip USB flash removable disk, dubbed a "pen drive." In early October 2014, security researchers Adam Caudill and Brandon Wilson publicly released source code to a firmware attack against Phison USB controller ICs. This code implements the

BadUSB BadUSB is a computer security attack using USB devices that are programmed with malicious software. For example, USB flash drives can contain a programmable Intel 8051 microcontroller, which can be reprogrammed, turning a USB flash drive into a m ...

exploit described in July 2014 at the

Black Hat Briefings Black Hat Briefings (commonly referred to as Black Hat) is a computer security conference that provides security consulting, training, and briefings to hackers, corporations, and government agencies around the world. Black Hat brings together ...

conference. In August 2019, Phison announced that they would be releasing PS-50 series chips, e.g., PS5018-E18, that are designed to support PCIe 4.0

NVMe NVM Express (NVMe) or Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface Specification (NVMHCIS) is an open, logical-device interface specification for accessing a computer's non-volatile storage media usually attached via the PCI Express bus. The in ...

(non-volatile memory express) solid-state drives (SSDs). With such technology, the chips built on the NVMe SSDs have read and write speed of up to 7,000 MBs per second. In late 2020, Phison started shipping their E18 for high-end NVMe SSDs. In January 2021, Phison announced that they were planning to introduce a pair of USB flash drive controllers for high-end portable SSDs, designed to compete against current solutions that combine a USB to NVMe bridge chip with a standard NVMe SSD controller. Phison also released a new entry-level DRAM-less NVMe SSD controller in 2021. For portable SSDs, Phison introduced the U17 and U18 controllers. For NVMe SSDs, Phison introduced the E21T controller in 2021, their latest DRAM-less NVMe controller. This is a follow-up to the E19T controller, which had seen very little use in retail consumer SSDs but has actually been outselling their high-end E16 PCIe 4.0 controller due to strong demand from OEMs. In January 2022, Phison introduced the E26 SSD controller, with higher transfer speeds than previous controllers. In April 2022, Phison announced a long term partnership with data storage company Seagate to develop and distribute enterprise NVMe SSDs.

Subsidiaries

The company set up a research and development (R&D) centre named "Phisontech" in

Bayan Lepas Bayan Lepas is a suburb of George Town in the Malaysian state of Penang. Located near the southeastern tip of Penang Island, south of the city centre, it is home to the Penang International Airport, the third busiest airport in Malaysia, as we ...

Penang Penang is a Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia along the Strait of Malacca. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital city, George Town, is located, and Seberang Perai on the Malay Peninsula. Th ...

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

in 2012, that was involved in the design and development of flash memory applications. The R&D centre was later closed down in 2019 due to talent loss, work culture and lack of supporting local businesses. In 2024, Phison started a new company called "MaiStorage" in

Puchong Puchong is a major town and a parliamentary constituency in the Petaling District, in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. Bordering Kuala Lumpur, it is part of the Greater Kuala Lumpur area. It is bordered by Petaling Jaya in the north, Subang J ...

Selangor Selangor ( ; ), also known by the Arabic language, Arabic honorific Darul Ehsan, or "Abode of Sincerity", is one of the 13 states of Malaysia. It is on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and is bordered by Perak to the north, Pahang to the e ...

, involved in

integrated circuit An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...

(IC) design and

computer data storage Computer data storage or digital data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and Data storage, recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The cent ...

technologies in data centres, electric vehicles, and

generative artificial intelligence Generative artificial intelligence (Generative AI, GenAI, or GAI) is a subfield of artificial intelligence that uses generative models to produce text, images, videos, or other forms of data. These models Machine learning, learn the underlyin ...

References

2000 establishments in Taiwan Manufacturing companies based in Hsinchu Companies established in 2000 Semiconductor companies of Taiwan Fabless semiconductor companies Computer memory Taiwanese brands Companies listed on the Taipei Exchange {{Taiwan-company-stub

History

Subsidiaries

See also

References