Samsung Electronics is now mass-producing what it says is the industry’s first 256 GB embedded memory based on the UFS 2.0 standard for next-gen mobile devices.
“By providing high-density UFS memory that is nearly twice as fast as a SATA SSD for PCs, we will contribute to a paradigm shift within the mobile data storage market,” Samsung’s executive vice president of memory sales and marketing Joo Sun Choi said in a press release. “We are determined to push the competitive edge in premium storage lineups – OEM NVMe SSDs, external SSDs, and UFS – by moving aggressively to enhance performance and capacity in all three markets.”
The new UFS memory is based on the company’s V-NAND flash memory chips and handles up to 45,000 and 40,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) for random reading and writing, respectively. Samsung said the technology is more than twice as fast as the 19,000 and 14,000 IOPS of the previous generation of UFS memory.
For sequential reading, the 256 GB UFS takes advantage of two lanes of data transfer to move data at up to 850 MB/s, which is reportedly nearly twice as fast as a typical SATA-based SSD used in PCs. In terms of sequential writing, it supports up to 260MB/s, which is approximately three times faster than high-performance external micro SD cards.
As a result, the new 256 GB UFS memory is capable of supporting Ultra HD video playback and multitasking functionality on large-screen mobile devices, such as watching 4K Ultra HD movies on a split screen, while searching image files or downloading video clips.
Its capacity also allows what is said to be an unmatched amount of data storage on the mobile device itself. For example, one 256 GB UFS chip can store about 47 full HD movies, Samsung says.
In addition, with the advent of next-gen smartphones that support the USB 3.0 interface, users will be able to transfer data much faster between mobile devices. That interface will allow sending a 5 GB-equivalent full-HD video clip (average 90-minute movie size) in 12 seconds, Samsung said.
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