Toshiba Memory Sampling 128GB UFS V3.0 Embedded Flash Memory Devices

Toshiba Memory Europe GmbH (TME) has started sampling the 128GB ^[1] version of the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) Ver. 3.0 embedded flash memory devices.

This line-up utilizes the company’s 96-layer BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory and is available in three capacities: 128, 256 and 512GB ^[2]. With R/W performance and low power consumption, these devices are for applications such as mobile devices, smartphones, tablets, and augmented/virtual reality systems.

Consumers continue to demand increasingly performance and an improved user experience from their devices, and the UFS standard is constantly being refined in order to support this evolution. Due to its serial interface, UFS supports full duplexing, which enables both concurrent reading and writing between the host processor and UFS device. With the introduction of UFS 3.0, JEDEC, in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, has enhanced previous versions of the UFS standard to help product designers enable improvements in mobile devices and related applications.

These devices integrate 96-layer BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory and a controller in a JEDEC-standard 11.5x13mm package. The controller performs ECC, wear leveling, logical-to-physical address translation, and bad-block management for simplified system development.

All three devices are compliant with JEDEC UFS Ver. 3.0, including HS-GEAR4, which has a theoretical interface speed of up to 11.6Gb/s per lane (x2 lanes=23.2Gb/s) while also supporting features that suppress increases in power consumption. Sequential read and write performance of the 512GB device are improved by approximately 70% and 80%, respectively, over previous generation 256GB company’s devices.

The firm was the first company to introduce UFS devices and has been shipping since 2013. The introduction of these UFS Ver. 3.0 devices maintains the firm’s position in storage for next generation mobile devices which they will continue through driving further advances.

Samples of these devices are showed at the company’s booth at the Embedded World 2019 Exhibition and Conference (February 26-28, Nuremberg, Germany).

^[1] Sample shipments of the 128GB device will start with the rest of the line-up to gradually follow after March. Spec of the samples may differ from that of commercial products.
^[2] Product density is identified based on the density of memory chip(s) within the product, not the amount of memory capacity available for storage by the end user. Consumer-usable capacity will be less due to overhead data areas, formatting, bad blocks, and other constraints, and may also vary based on the host device and application. For details, please refer to applicable product specifications. 1GB=1,073,741,824 bytes.