introduced in 2011
is a communication protocol specifically developed for SSDs
was designed to address the shortcomings of the SATA and SAS interfaces
defines how host software communicates with non-volatile memory across a PCIe, RDMA, TCP and more
is an industry standard for SSDs in many form factors (U.2, M.2, AIC, EDSFF)
bypasses all the AHCI/SCSI layers

NVMe - Specification Structure

NVMe library of specifications is divided into eight different specifications, including the:

NVMe Management Interface Specification - (NVMe-MI) Specification - defines an optional management interface for all NVMe subsystems
NVMe I/O Command Set Specifications - define data structures, features, log pages, commands, and status values that extend the NVMe Base Specification
- NVM Command Set specification
- ZNS Command Set specification
- KV Command Set specification
NVMe Base Specification -
NVMe Transport Specifications - defines the binding of the NVMe protocol including controller properties to a specific transport
- PCIe Transport specification
- RDMA Transport specification
- TCP Transport specification
NVMe Boot Specification (NVMe Boot) - defines constructs and guidelines for booting from NVMe interfaces

NVMe - Subpages