Kioxia Sampling UFS V.4.0 Embedded Flash Memory Devices Up to 512GB for Automotive Applications

Kioxia Corporation announced sampling ^[1] of the industry’s 1st ^[2] Universal Flash Storage ^[3] (UFS) V.4.0 embedded flash memory devices designed for automotive applications.

These new performing devices deliver fast embedded storage transfer speeds in a small package size and are targeted to a variety of next-gen automotive applications, including telematics, infotainment systems and ADAS ^[4]. The improved performance ^[5] of UFS products from the company –  including approximately +100% for sequential read speed and approximately +40% for sequential write speed – enables these applications to take advantage of 5G’s connectivity benefits, leading to faster system startup times and a better user experience.

The 1st to introduce UFS technology ^[6], the company continues to move the technology forward. Its new UFS Ver. 4.0 devices integrate its BiCS FLASH 3D flash memory and a controller in a JEDEC-standard package. UFS 4.0 incorporates MIPI M-PHY 5.0 and UniPro 2.0 and supports theoretical interface speeds of up to 23.2Gb/s per lane or 46.4Gb/s per device. UFS 4.0 is backward compatible with UFS 3.1.

The new Kioxia devices support High Speed Link Startup Sequence (HS-LSS) features, enabling Link Startup (M-PHY and UniPro initialization sequence) between device and host to be performed at a faster HS-G1 Rate A (1,248Mb/s) than that of conventional UFS. This is expected to reduce the time for ‘Link Startup’ by approximately 70% compared to the conventional method.

Advanced features and functionalities are supported in UFS Ver. 4.0 devices to address demanding automotive application requirements, including:

• Refresh feature: Improves data reliability by refreshing degraded data to prevent data corruption even in the harsh, demanding in-vehicle environment.

• Extended diagnosis feature: Enables users to view important information from the UFS device, allowing preventative action to be taken.

Available in capacities of 128, 256 and 512GB, these devices support a wide temperature range, meet AEC ^[7] Q100 Grade2 requirements and offer enhanced reliability capabilities that complex automotive applications require.

^[1] Spec of the samples may differ from commercial products.
^[2] As of January 30, 2024. Kioxia survey.
^[3] Universal Flash Storage (UFS) is a product category for a class of embedded memory products built to the JEDEC UFS standard specification. Due to its serial interface, UFS supports full duplexing, which enables both concurrent reading and writing between the host processor and UFS device.
^[4] Advanced Driving Assistant System
^[5] Compared to Kioxia Corporation’s previous generation 512GB device No. ‘THGJFGT2T85BAB5’
^[6] Kioxia Corporation’s first sample shipment, as of February 8, 2013.
^[7] Electrical component qualification requirements defined by the AEC (Automotive Electronics Council).