Samsung is diversifying its solid-state drive (SSD) tester supply chain as it prepares to mass-produce SSDs with next-generation interfaces.
The South Korean tech giant recently held an open bidding meeting for SSD tester suppliers in a bid to secure new suppliers, sources said.
Samsung has since then finished selecting the candidates it wants, they said.
The meeting was to secure suppliers of SSD aging tester and SSD post tester.
Aging tester puts chips in chambers to test whether they can perform well in extreme conditions.
All SSDs aimed at enterprise application goes through an aging test as they are used in environments with high temperatures such as in data centers.
Samsung already procures SSD aging tester from South Korean SSD tester maker Exicon, which is the primary vendor for the equipment.
The tech giant’s recent meeting was to secure a secondary vendor __ Neosem, Advantest and Teledyne have turned in a bid to be selected.
SSD post tester is used to confirm that the SSDs that are about to be shipped have the same read and write performances that were initially set.
Samsung is looking for a completely new primary vendor for the testers and won’t be procuring them anymore from its previous suppliers. Exicon and Neosem are competing for this bid.
Intel and AMD are preparing to launch server processors that support PCIe 5.0 SSD. SSD makers like Samsung have also developed SSDs that support the PCIe 5.0 interface in preparation to launch this year.
Testers will be in high demand when PCIe 5.0 SSDs go into mass production to test their reliability.
