Phison at the 2026 Computex showcased its next-generation SSD controllers based on new foundry nodes, implementing new PCI-Express Gen 6 (256 Gbps), and its reference SSD demos. The company also unveiled its newest Pascari-branded enterprise SSDs. We begin our tour with the new Phison X3 series 8-channel SSD controller that implements PCIe Gen 6, the future interconnect standard that could debut in 2027-28. The controller features a PCI-Express 6.0 x4 host interface, and supports NVMe 2.3 protocol, including computational storage. While there are no host platforms besides development kits handed out by Intel, a Gen 6 SSD powered by the X3 will typically offer sequential transfer rates of 28 GB/s, double that of today's Gen 5 SSDs, with 4K random access speeds of up to 6.8 million IOPS.

Next up is the new Phison E37T, the successor to the E27T. This is a very interesting PCIe Gen 5 client SSD controller that's DRAMless, while offering sequential speeds of up to 14.9 GB/s reads, with up to 13.2 GB/s writes—performance you'd expect from a high-end controller with DRAM cache. It also tops out at 3 million IOPS 4K random access. The best part? Phison claims an active power of under 2.3 W, which means drives based on this chip can make do without any active cooling, perhaps just a heat-spreader or a lightweight heatsink. Phison showed us their reference SSD based on the E37T, along with a performance demo.

Phison also showed off its reference-design PCIe Gen 6 SSDs in the E3.S and E1.S drives powered by the X3 series controller. A live demo on a closed developer platform shows PCIe Gen 6 PAM4 digital waveform.

The flavor of the season with the new crop of Pascari enterprise SSDs is NVMe 2.1, and support for computational storage. The company showcased the Pascari D201E, an E1.S drive ranging from 1.6 TB to 15.36 TB, with up to 14.8 GB/s sequential transfers and 3.3 million IOPS; the X202Z, a U.2 15 mm Gen 5 2x2 with similar capacity and speeds; and Pascari D250P in the E1.S 9.5 mm, with 480 GB to 3.84 TB capacity.