Tech news in 3 minutes
The Corsair New Product Release Computex 2026 Suite Tour Computex 2026 Post Update
At Computex in Taipei, the author met Frank Chen, CEO of Exascend, through contacts at SMI. Frank explained Exascend's success lies in its ability to customize products and respond to customer needs faster than larger competitors. Notably, Frank’s background includes serving as China General Manager for SandForce in 2011, where the author also began. After the meeting, Frank arranged a tour of Exascend’s Shanghai facility, hosted by Sean Xiong. The original plan involved a bullet train to a production facility 830 km away in Wuhan (3.5 hours each way at 350 km/h), but time constraints prevented the trip. In Shanghai, the engineering team emphasized Exascend’s core value: manufacturing SSDs from the wafer level, reducing lead times. Company mottos like "Inspiration to Innovation" and "Innovation Starts Here" reflect their positive culture. The discussion focused on the PD5 Enterprise SSD, built on the SMI SM8366 Gen 5 controller (explaining the SMI connection). Available in capacities from 7,680 GB to 30,720 GB, it uses 3D TLC NAND and DDR4 DRAM, with performance reaching 14,100 MB/s read, 9,335 MB/s write, and up to 3,112K IOPS. Power efficiency ranges from 5.4 W idle to 25 W active. Exascend’s vertical manufacturing allows firmware customization to fine-tune products. In the lab, an SSD test chamber subjected drives to temperatures up to 85°C and rapid fluctuations to detect physical weaknesses or soldering faults. After the tour, Sean and the team treated the author to local cuisine. The article concludes with thanks to Frank, Sean, and the team, and a hint that an Exascend Enterprise SSD review may be forthcoming.