You're making too strong a distinction between Apple's soldered and removable physical objects, IMO. Same flash devices, the only difference is what PCB they're soldered to.
Nope, not making a strong distinction at all. I'm well aware that soldered vs. slotted refers only to how the device is attached. But since you seemed confused about what I wrote, I was trying to simplify things by saying let's just talk about the removable storage.
I know I have misunderstood, because you're use terminology in odd (or perhaps overly narrow) ways.
I'm going to push back on this. I'm using the same language that's been used generally, since soon after the introduction of AS, to describe the distinction between Apple's approach to storage and that of PC's. My language is no different from that used by, for instance, Andrew Cunningham in this 2022 article in Ars Technica (emphasis mine):
"To dramatically oversimplify, all SSDs need at least two things: NAND flash chips that store data and an SSD controller that handles the particulars of reading from and writing to those chips. (Some SSDs also use a small amount of DRAM as a cache, though budget-priced and mainstream SSDs increasingly just steal a small chunk of your system's memory to perform the same operations with a minor performance penalty.) PC SSDs like Samsung's 980 Pro or Western Digital's WD Blue SN570 all include the controller and the NAND, which is what makes them easy to replace. Each SSD is a self-contained device, usable in any PC that has a physical SATA port or M.2 slot and that supports the SATA/NVMe storage specs. Apple's SSDs used to work this way, but starting with the Apple T2 chip and continuing into the Apple Silicon era, Apple began building storage controllers directly into its own chips instead. This means that the Mac Studio's SSD cards, while removable instead of soldered down, are just NAND plus what Martin calls a 'raw NAND controller/bridge.' "
To upgrade the Mac’s SSDs, it helps to understand how they work.
arstechnica.com
So my question was simple: Are there other applications in which manufacturers do the same as Apple, and commission high-performance storage devices that are just NAND plus a bridge chip?
I feel like your objective was to more to argue why my question was poorly formed, while also demonstrating your techncial expertise, rather than trying to get to the heart of my question and give an answer that would provide clarity. I understand that when people have technical expertise they want to share it, which is probably why you wanted to riff on the semantics of "controller" but, as a teacher, I always first ask: Is this technical information going to bring clarity to my answer or just act as a distraction?
I see this all the time from experts on Chemistry Stack Exchange who come from industry rather than academia, and thus have significant technical knowledge but may not have significant teaching experience. They focus their answers on explaining why the poster's question is poorly formed or needs much more detail or clarity to be properly answered, and also provide lots of technical details that just add confusion, leaving the poor poster embarrassed and confused, instead of actually trying to serve the poster's needs, get to the heart of what they are wondering about, and provide an answer to that. Then I'll step in and give an answer that does serve the poster. Take a look at this example. Contrast my answer (I'm theorist) with the one given by Buck Thorn (immediately below mine), which qualitatively resembles the answer you gave me—he starts by saying how the poster's question is poorly formed, then goes into a long riff about thermometry, and at end of it never answers the question! [Except his answer is also wrong, which I don't think yours was.]. By contrast, since the poster emphasized "EXACT", I gently corrected him about that, then proceeded to give him a clear, direct and useful answer.
I didn't need his question to be perfect in order to give it a direct answer, because I could see exactly what he was wondering about:
We know that when two objects are placed in contact with each other, after a period of time, the two objects will have the same temperature. Thus, if a hot body comes into contact with a relatively...
chemistry.stackexchange.com
I know there is also a cultural difference between us. As a biophysicist, I am always trying to simplify things as much as possible: What is the least amount of information we need to answer this question? What is the most coarse-grained view that will give us a useful answer? Anything not essential gets thrown out. While your job, I assume, requires close attention to technical details, and you thus try to preserve them.
BTW, that's not to say I don't ever provide technically detailed answers. Sometimes I do, but it's only specifically when I judge the details are needed to give the poster the best clarity, i.e., to best serve the poster's needs, e.g., here:
Lets say we have a membrane which separates a tank of pure water from a tank of water saturated with a solute(there are also undissolved chunks of solute which can immediately dissolve if water is ...
chemistry.stackexchange.com
OK, one last example: Here's an instance when five other experts on the site collectively decided the poster's question was bad and closed it as unaswerable, but I saw the question was fine and gave an answer just before they did that.
I am studying chemistry and biology at the same time, and have encountered a problem. In the ideal gas law, the $R$ is the ideal gas constant, and its value is $\pu{0.0821 L atm mol-1 K-1}.$ Howev...
chemistry.stackexchange.com
Imagine being a student asking what you think is a reasonable question, and five experts, each with decades of experience in the field, all say your question is inadequate. How do you fight back against that? Well you can't. I sympathize with that student because when I'm asking questions outside my field, at least online, I'm often on the receiving end of that. All you can hope for is that a sixth expert comes along (in this case me), judges that the other experts are being unreasonably difficult and your question is fine, and proves that by giving you an answer.