CNEX Labs

What is CNEX Labs?

Founded in 2013 by veterans in the semiconductor industry, CNEX Labs is a privately held start-up company headquartered in Silicon Valley. CNEX Labs specializes in advancing semiconductor storage, focusing on delivering both innovative hardware in the form of semiconductors and accompanying software solutions.

They are pioneers in creating high-performance, flexible PCIe SSD controller ASICs designed for big data compute and analytics, significantly impacting cloud, hyperscale, and enterprise data centers. Through strategic investments by Fortune 500 companies in storage and networking, CNEX Labs has positioned themselves as key players in the evolution of storage technology.

Their first product was developed in collaboration with NAND Flash manufacturers and customers, formulating a revolutionary NVMe PCIe SSD controller ASIC that supports LightNVM/Open-Channel operation, including native NVMoE I/O connectivity. CNEX SSD controllers stand out by ensuring high performance alongside low and predictable latency, enabling software-defined storage with a host-based Flash Translation Layer (FTL), and providing Ethernet I/O for expansive storage fabric scalability. The controllers support various operational modes beyond NVMe-compliant operation, like LightNVM which facilitates full host control for application-specific optimizations.

Their solutions target data center customers seeking to break traditional storage, networking, and compute limitations, enabling greater efficiency and scalability. CNEX products also cater to storage vendors needing dense, scalable, and provision-able storage solutions to accommodate diverse workloads and quality of service demands.

With SSD technology, CNEX collaborates with NAND vendors and industry leaders to supply a new generation of SSD controllers facilitating interface flexibility, energy efficiency, and high performance across different form factors.

The company is driven by a mission to deliver the next significant innovation in solid-state storage, priding themselves on being an equal opportunity employer, offering competitive salaries, benefits, company equity, and valuing the convergence of talented individuals to forge new customer advantages.