Kioxia Sampling of 256GB/512GB Universal Flash Storage V3.1 Embedded Flash Memory Devices

Kioxia Europe GmbH is sampling its newest gen of 256GB and 512GB Universal Flash Storage (UFS) V3.1 embedded flash memory devices.

Housed in 0.8 and 1.0mm-high packages, these products improve performance by 30% for random read and 40% for random write^[1] – making them thinner^[2] and faster than their predecessors. These UFS devices utilize the company’s most current, high-performance 5th-gen BiCS flash 3D flash memory and are targeted to a variety of mobile applications.

The set of power and space-conscious applications that utilize embedded flash memory continue to need higher performance and density, and UFS has increasingly been the solution of choice. From a total gigabyte perspective, UFS now accounts for the majority of the demand relative to e-MMC.

According to Forward Insights, when combining overall UFS and e-MMC gigabyte demand worldwide, almost 70% of the demand this year is for UFS, and this will continue to grow^[3].

“With the new Ver. 3.1 UFS our continued leadership in JEDEC standardization results in another boundaries breakthrough on performance and form factors in the area of embedded non-volatile memories,” noted Axel Stoermann, VP, memory marketing and engineering, Kioxia Europe. “Consequent review and further development of Kioxia’s BiCS flash 3D flash memory technology not only provides a new product range of random read and write speed in thinnest packaging formats, the new devices have the potential to be the preferred solution for a broad area of demanding industrial applications.“

UFS 256GB and 512GB devices include following advances:

Performance increase of 30% for random read and 40% for random write.
Host Performance Booster (HPB) V2.0: Improves random read performance by utilizing the host side memory to store logical to physical translation tables. While HPB Ver. 1.0 only enables 4-KB chunk size access, It enables wider access – which can further boost random read performance.
Thinner 256GB package at 0.8mm height

^[1] Compared to Kioxia’s prior gen of 256GB/512GB UFS.
^[2] In the case of 256GB density compared to Kioxia’s prior gen 256GB UFS.
^[3] Source: Forward Insights 2Q21