The JEDEC Solid State Technology Association on Tuesday announced the Universal Flash Storage 3.0 standard, officially labeling it as the version JESD220D. The technology offers a 100 percent performance increase over UFS 2.1, boasting a data rate of 11.6Gbps per lane and support for up to two lanes in total, promising peak bandwidth of 23.2Gbps. JEDEC primarily attributes this advancement to its decision to implement the MIPI M-PHY Gear 4 specification into the standard, as well as MIPI UniProSM v1.8, both of which also allowed it to form an interconnected layer. The Arlington, Virginia-based trade organization said that much like its previous standards, UFS 3.0 has been specifically designed for mobile apps and systems seeking a no-compromise storage platform that’s both fast and efficient. The latter point is backed by the fact that the revised standard relies on a 2.5V VCC power supply, whereas UFS 2.1 required at least a 2.7V solution.
The technology has also been optimized for automotive applications and includes several functionalities meant to cater exclusively to that segment, shipping with refresh operation support meant to improve hardware reliability and increased resilience to weather conditions in the form of a significantly expanded operating temperature range that now spans from -40 to 105 degrees Celsius (-40 to 221 degrees Fahrenheit). The standard is compatible with the latest generation of NAND flash memory, thus being ready to power any contemporary (Android) smartphone or tablet. Temperature-related notifications are also part of the package, being designed as an extension of JEDEC’s growing focus on the automotive industry, though the feature may also end up being used by mobile devices. Original equipment manufacturers will have the choice of programming their own alerts, i.e. temperature ranges intended to trigger them.
UFS 3.0 also comes with a revamped logging mode meant to allow for more effective system debugging by automatically storing a detailed error history of the hardware that’s hosting it. Besides the new memory solution, JEDEC announced the UFS Card Extension version 1.1 standard, a somewhat revised variant of the specification that expands on the power definition functionality of the previous technology. Both of the new standards are likely to be commercialized in the second half of the year and can be downloaded from JEDEC’s website linked below.