Toshiba America Electronic Components
announced at the Consumer Electronics Show that its universal flash
storage (UFS) implementation will be added to the Qualcomm Snapdragon
802 chipset. UFS version 2.0 products will go into production for
smartphones and tablets in the second quarter.
"You'll see some initial systems at end of 2014, but basically 2015
is when the primary ramp is," Scott Beekman, senior business development
manager for mobile communications memory at TAEC, told us. "By 2016, we
expect UFS to account for the majority of [flash] demand for tablets
and smartphones."
UFS, a next-generation embedded flash memory device (following eMMC),
delivers a threefold boost in performance for advanced mobile
applications. UFS 2.0 supports a maximum data rate of 1.2Gbit/s,
compared with 400 MBit/s for eMMC 5.0. The UFS serial interface supports
command queuing, as well as full duplex operation to read and write at
same time.
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Though eMMC has lower idle/sleep power and a lower cost, Beekman said
UFS provides better power efficiency, and he expects the price gap
between the two to decrease over time. UFS 2.0 is not backward
compatible with the earlier version 1.1, which ran at up to 300 Mbit/s.
"High-end smartphones and tablets will be the first to adopt and take
advantage of the performance benefits of UFS over e-MMC," Scott
Nelson, senior vice president of TAEC's memory business unit, said in a press release.
"As UFS migrates to mid-range products, the embedded mobile memory
market will transition from e-MMC to UFS, though e-MMC will likely
continue to support the low-end for some time."
Among lower-tier mobile devices, Beekman said, eMMC will remain
dominant though 2016, when UFS will account for approximately 40% of the
market. By 2017, UFS will surpass eMMC.
Toshiba is the first company to announce product-ready shipments of
UFS, though Beekman said he expects major NAND suppliers will also ship
UFS. "Given eMMC is such a dominate solution for smartphones and
tablets, it's an important step toward a new solution in the market."
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