S Korea's Fadu, Adata team up to develop custom solid-state drives

Korean semiconductor company, FADU, signed a memorandum of understanding with Adata, the world’s second-largest solid-state drive (SSD) module provider, on April 2, 2025.

The agreement was finalized at Adata’s headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan.

The partnership supports FADU’s Flex SSD model, starting with Gen5 enterprise SSDs using Triple-Level Cell technology.

It enables customers to tailor SSD designs to their needs.

FADU will offer controller IP, firmware, and design support while Adata prepares to manage its own SSD products.

🔗 Source: The Korea Herald

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ SSD market’s explosive growth driven by technological evolution

The FADU-Adata partnership enters a market projected to grow dramatically from $61.95 billion in 2024 to between $134.02 billion and $211.7 billion by 2030-2032, representing a CAGR of 16-17.6% according to multiple market research firms 1 2.

This growth is fueled by the technological evolution highlighted in the news article, including the progression from Triple-Level Cell (TLC) to Quad-Level Cell (QLC) NAND technology, which increases storage density by allowing each memory cell to store four bits of information instead of three 3.

The focus on Gen5 enterprise SSDs in the partnership reflects broader industry trends toward higher performance, with newer PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSDs achieving read speeds up to 10 GB/s, more than twice the performance of previous generations 4.

This technological roadmap from TLC to QLC aligns with transitions in NAND memory’s history, where each generational leap has expanded storage capacity while creating new engineering challenges related to endurance and reliability 5.

Market analysts anticipate that enterprise applications, particularly data centers, will drive significant demand as cloud computing infrastructure expands to handle growing data volumes 4 6.

2️⃣ Collaborative business models reshape the SSD value chain

FADU’s innovative “Flex SSD” business model represents a departure from traditional supplier-customer relationships in the memory industry by enabling varying degrees of involvement, from controller IP licensing to full independent manufacturing.

This approach reflects the restructuring of value chains in the SSD ecosystem, as seen in LITE-ON’s 2019 strategic decision to transfer its entire SSD business to Toshiba Memory Holdings for $165 million, allowing LITE-ON to refocus on its core businesses 7.