By Mark LaPedus

Mobile OEMs are looking for higher capacity and faster storage solutions, as the current interface technology standard is quickly running out of steam.

The current mobile storage interface standard — dubbed e.MMC — was recently given a major speed upgrade. But looking to replace products based on the e.MMC standard, many OEMs are now taking a hard look at a faster and next-generation interface technology called Universal Flash Storage (UFS). The UFS electrical interface is a serial communication bus that can be used in smartphones, cameras, digital recorders, MP3 players, tablets and even electronic toys.

UFS could also propel a new and large semiconductor sector. Micron, Samsung and others are racing each other to roll out their initial UFS chipsets in 2012. Cadence, Synopsys and other intellectual-property (IP) houses are also looking at the technology. The volumes for UFS chipsets and IP are expected in 2013.

In February, standards body JEDEC published the 1.0 specification of the new UFS standard. JEDEC will shortly upgrade the 1.0 specification. And a separate group plans to set up accreditation labs and a certification process for UFS-compliant products.

“UFS is a big deal,” said Matti Floman, senior manager of technology at cell-phone giant Nokia at JEDEC’s Mobile Forum in Santa Clara, Calif. on Thursday (May 10). “UFS lets you open up a big door” in terms of enabling new and exploding applications in the mobile space.

For example, UFS will enable end-users to multi-task and open up different applications — perhaps from 10 to 20 programs — on a smartphone simultaneously, said Victor Tsai, architecture strategist for NAND development at Micron Technology Inc. UFS is initially geared for mobile products, but the technology could one day migrate to PC systems, Tsai told SemiMD.

e.MMC vs. UFS

The push for UFS follows a major move by Apple, which could be developing a rival and proprietary solution to UFS. Last year, Apple bought IP chip vendor Anobit Technologies Ltd. of Israel for up to $500 million. Anobit’s memory signal processing technology is said to improve the endurance, performance and cost of flash storage products and systems.

Apple — as well as Nokia, Samsung and other mobile vendors — all see a major need for a new mobile interface storage technology. Today, NAND flash memory is used for storage in many types of mobile systems. NAND is controlled by a dedicated controller, which handles the read, write and other functions within the device. In many of today’s systems, three components — the NAND flash memory, controller and a multimedia card (MMC) interface — are integrated into a single device. Generally, the interface is based on the e.MMC technology standard, which has been around for several years.

Continuing e.MMC as an industry memory standard for embedded nonvolatile storage, JEDEC last year released an upgraded specification for the e.MMC interface. The new e.MMC version 4.5 standard defines functionality that focuses on improving the interaction between the host processor and the memory device at the interface. It offers an interface bandwidth increase from 104 Mbyte/sec to 200 MByte/sec.

Despite the upgrade for e.MMC, the message was clear at JEDEC’s Mobile Forum: UFS is the future. Competing with e.MMC, UFS is designed for both embedded and removable flash memory-based storage in mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. The initial data throughput for UFS will be 300 Mbyte/sec. Over time, UFS can be scaled to 600 Mbyte/sec and beyond, according to JEDEC.

UFS uses MIPI Alliance’s M-PHY and UniPro specifications for the interconnect layer. UniPro is a specification meant to act as a universal chip-to-chip protocol. Designed as the primary physical interface for the UniPro specification, M-PHY is a high-speed serial interface targeting up to 2.9 gigabits per second (Gbps) per lane, with scalability to 5.8 Gbps per lane.

“Performance and security are the key focus points for UFS,” said Ryan Chien, an analyst with IHS iSuppi. “In particular, upcoming productivity-based tablets such as those running Windows 8 will be ideal for UFS, as the Windows kernel is built around traditional storage interfaces. The new super-thin ultrabook computers promoted by Intel Corp., with their flexible product development roadmap, also could be a potentially robust application for UFS.”

Despite the push for UFS, the e.MMC standard is expected to retain its dominance in many cellphones and tablets, with shipments rising by a robust 37 percent for 2012, according to the firm. Shipments of e.MMC solutions in 2013 are forecast to reach 711.1 million units, up from 520.3 million in 2012, according to IHS iSuppli.

No forecast is yet available for UFS. “UFS parts won’t be as cost competitive as e.MMC given their high manufacturing expense. As a result, smartphone manufacturers will not share the same urgency to switch their storage needs to e.MMC, even for bleeding-edge smartphone platforms,” Chien said. ”Moreover, the most current e.MMC 4.5 revision with up to 200 megabyte-per-second performance not only is sufficient for even high-end devices, it also provides a far smoother transition than UFS for mainstream device platforms in terms of system compatibility. E.MMC has a further card up its sleeve. An earlier-specification product known as e.MMC 4.41 continues to claim a sizable contingent of devices that prefer to stick to the older e.MMC version instead of incurring the additional expense of switching to e.MMC 4.5.”

The case for UFS

On the other hand, UFS will provide a change in architecture to increase performance. UFS will initially offer three times the interface speed of the prevalent e.MMC interface, which is comparable to serial ATA-2. Moreover, UFS will offer the promise for reductions in device power consumption due to a low active power level and a near-zero idle power level.

And unlike e.MMC, UFS supports several significant features, such as multi-tasking and command queuing to raise random read/write speeds, said Alan Niebel, chief executive for Web-Feet Research Inc., a market research company. This differs from conventional flash-based memory cards and embedded flash solutions, which processes one command at a time, limiting random read/write access performance. In addition, a forthcoming complementary UFS Host Controller Interface (HCI) specification will allow system designers flexibility by simplifying the involvement of the host processor in the operation of the flash storage subsystem.

So far, there are little or no UFS-based products in the market. With the standards now in place, vendors are expected to roll out systems and chipsets based on UFS technology in 2012, said Hangu Sohn, technical product marketing manager for Samsung Semiconductor Inc. Samsung itself did not disclose products in the arena.

Micron also did not announce products. “Product availability is TBA (to be announced),” said Micron’s Tsai, who is also the vice chairman for JEDEC’s JC-64.1 Subcommittee, which defines electrical specifications and command protocols in UFS.

In an interview with SemiMD, Tsai said JEDEC is defining a more robust version of the UFS specification, dubbed 1.1, which will be out “soon.” UFS 1.1 will also have many of the attributes of 1.0, he said.

A separate organization — the Universal Flash Storage Association — is in the process of setting up accreditation labs and certification procedures for UFS chips and devices, he said. The certification process will ensure that products are UFS compliant. Formed in 2010, the Universal Flash Storage Association includes Agilent, Micron, Phison, Samsung, Silicon Motion and SK Hynix.

Tags: Apple, Intel, Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2012 at 8:19 pm and is filed under News Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.