Phison Electronics is a NAND flash total solution provider offering system and OEM services for major retail brands. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Phison Electronics President and General Manager Michael Wu to learn more about the company.
Michael Wu’s Background
Could you tell me more about your background? Wu said:
“I started as a verification engineer at RF Micro Devices, primarily testing products as we were building a new product line. I had a great work-life balance and was truly invested in my role, but I was presented an opportunity with Phison, a leader in NAND flash controllers and NAND storage solutions, in 2007 that offered a new challenge. It was a leap of faith, as the primary basis for the role was establishing and providing local technical support in the US to Phison customers. Truthfully, I love a good challenge and embracing the unknown, which is why I’m still here after 17 years.”
History Of The Company
Could you tell me about the history of the company? Wu shared:
“Phison started in Hsinchu, Taiwan in 2000 and is now almost 4,000 employees strong. In 2007, I was tasked with establishing and growing the Phison US team, which I increased by almost 5000% in the US, with the biggest headcount jump occurring in the last 5 years. My initial focus was growing the customer support team, which remains a focus today. We have since expanded other business units within Phison US, with 2015 being the pivotal year of shifting to proactive marketing to establish a brand identity, particularly in providing tailored products for customers’ storage needs. Now that we have a robust product portfolio across client and enterprise, we will continue to expand our teams to remain ahead of demand.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Wu reflected:
“My favorite memory is when we launched our first enterprise brand, Pascari. Having the successful release of the world’s first and largest capacity PCIe Gen5 122.88TB SSD in the same year as the product brand rollout enabled us to quickly gain product leadership. It also allowed us to move beyond a solely white-label business to create a brand identity and full suite of products in tandem.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Wu explained:
“Phison provides NAND storage solutions for client, enterprise, automotive, industrial and AI workloads, among many others. We provide engineering, design and manufacturing services for top OEMs, including SSD controllers and SSDs. In May of 2024, we launched our own enterprise storage solution portfolio brand, Pascari to redefine scalability and efficiency for data center applications. We also recently launched aiDAPTIV+, which enables on-premises training of up to 70 billion parameter models for GenAI, offering a cost-effective, scalable and secure alternative to utilizing cloud solutions.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any challenges in your work sector recently? Wu acknowledged:
“Introducing our AI training and inference solution, aiDAPTIV+ had roadblocks initially as it was a novel innovation that had not existed before, which presented a challenge in the market. It also positioned us to begin including software in our services. We overcame the challenge by going beyond offering hardware components alone to providing an all-in-one solution direct to users as well as to system integrators. We added a system solutions services arm in order to partner with these integrators to recreate a solution for real world use cases. In the end we developed software that allows the end-user to experience GenAI fine tuning in a cost-effective manner.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Wu noted:
“Phison began primarily as an ODM, serving top PC OEMs, NAND product manufacturers, rack storage OEMs, major consumer/retail brands and system integrators in the enterprise sector and computing, industrial and automotive industries. As of last year, we launched our own enterprise storage line, Pascari, and our AI training solution, aiDAPTIV+. Today, nearly one out of every four SSDs shipped worldwide is a Phison solution.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Wu cited:
“Besides going public on TPEX just four years after it was established, Phison has also continued to hit major technical milestones with first-to-market innovations, starting with the world’s first SoC USB flash controller in 2000, to world’s first and fastest PCIe Gen 4X4 NVMe client SSD controller in 2019, to now being world’s first 122.88TB PCIe Gen5 data center SSD in 2024. “
Customer Success Stories
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Wu cited:
“We recently had a few joint announcements with StorOne, which utilizes our Pascari X-series performance SSDs, VDURA, which utilizes our Pascari D-Series for data center scalability and Micron, which leverages our client controller technology in many of their top-selling Crucial drives.”
Revenue
When asking Wu about the company’s revenue, he pointed out:
“Phison’s global revenue last year was $1.8 billion.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Wu assessed:
“We are pursuing the TAM for data storage, which, according to Fortune Business Insights, ‘the data storage Market in the U.S. is projected to grow significantly, reaching an estimated value of $226.81 billion by 2032.'”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Wu affirmed:
“At Phison, over 80% of revenue is spent on R&D in order to continue to differentiate ourselves and provide top-line, next-generation products designed for and with our customers. We have been first-to-market numerous times due to our ability to be agile with our design and manufacturing to meet the market where it is today and tomorrow.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Wu concluded:
“We aspire to be a household enterprise SSD brand name that delivers the best quality storage solutions while remaining agile in our roadmap with tailored customer solutions to meet the market and use case demand. We aim to leverage our NAND flash expertise to remain customer-centric, building innovations and true engineering ingenuity together whether it’s for space, data centers or AI training and inference. We look to be leaders, driving innovation in every era, bolstering the introduction of novel technology and transforming it into a mainstay for the market.”
