Fastest way to split delimited string in SQL Server

Source : http://www.sqlservercentral.com

/* 
SET STATISTICS IO ON;
SET STATISTICS TIME ON;
SET NOCOUNT ON;

SELECT [Value] FROM [dbo].[split_delimited_string]
   ('1||2||3||4||5||6||7||8||9||10||11||12||13||14||15||16||17||18||19||20','||')
      WHERE Value IN (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,20)
SELECT [Value] FROM [dbo].[split_delimited_string]
   ('1;2;3;4;5;6;7;8;9;10;11;12;13;14;15;16;17;18;19;20',';') 

SET STATISTICS IO OFF;

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SET STATISTICS TIME OFF;
SET NOCOUNT OFF;
*/ 
CREATE FUNCTION [split_delimited_string] 
( 
@str NVARCHAR(MAX),  
@sep NVARCHAR(MAX) 
) 
RETURNS @value TABLE (Value NVARCHAR(MAX)) 
AS 
BEGIN 
DECLARE @xml XML
set @xml = (SELECT CONVERT(XML,'<r>' + REPLACE(@str,@sep,'</r><r>') + '</r>'))
INSERT INTO @value(Value)
SELECT t.value('.','NVARCHAR(MAX)')
FROM @xml.nodes('/r') AS x(t)
RETURN; 
END