Join the Universal Flash Storage Association (UFSA) at the Flash Memory Summit (booth 910) and at the UFSA sponsored session 201-D (Wednesday). Visit www.flashmemorysummit.com for more details.

The UFSA booth will feature demos from Synopsys and Keysight Technologies.

Synopsys will show their UFS Host solution in action, reading HD video stream from an actual UFS Device & playing on PC, demonstrating:

• Complete UFS end-to-end solution running on Hardware
• UFS and UniPro Controllers
• HS-Gear3 M-PHY

Keysight Technologies will show their solution for UFS signal validation using the Infiniium oscilloscope, demonstrating:

• Complete coverage of the M-PHY HS-Gear3 electrical requirement
• Automated measurement & analysis
• UFS & UniPro protocol layer decode

Flash Memory Summit session 201-D will feature presentations from Samsung Semiconductor, Marvell Semiconductor, Micron Technology, Keysight Technologies and Arasan Chip Systems. Micron has donated three high-speed 64 GB USB 3.0 drives to be given away in this session.

Also hear more about UFS in session 101-B (Tuesday) and in session 104-D (Tuesday).

UFS (Universal Flash Storage) is a high performance storage interface designed for use in computing and mobile systems requiring low power consumption such as smart phones and tablets. Its high speed serial interface and optimized SCSI protocol enable significant improvements in throughput and system performance. UFS v2.0 defines bandwidth of up to 1.2 GB/s over two data lanes.

UFS IP and components (host and storage) are available now. UFSA Compliance workshops are planned for 2014. Check us out at the Flash Memory Summit for more information.

If you don’t attend the Flash Memory Summit, check out our member presentations on the UFSA website: www.ufsa.org.

The Universal Flash Storage Association (www.ufsa.org) was founded in 2010 as a California Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Corporation for:

• Logo, compliance and certification management
• UFS technology promotion
• UFS infrastructure enablement
• Technical input into JEDEC for future standards

About UFSA

The Universal Flash Storage Association (UFSA) was founded in 2010 as an open trade association to promote widespread adoption and acceptance of the UFS standard. Board of Director members include Keysight Technologies, Micron Technology, Phison Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Silicon Motion Technology and SK Hynix. For more information about UFSA: http://www.ufsa.org/

Contacts

Universal Flash Storage Association
Lisa Rhoden, 408-915-UFSA
UFSA President
info@ufsa.org

AUSTIN, Texas–The Universal Flash Storage (UFS) version 2.0 standard, supported by the mobile industry and published in late 2013 by JEDEC, is projected to experience wide market adoption more quickly than previous storage offerings. UFS v2.0 bandwidth supports up to a 1.2 GB/s data transfer rate using a multi-lane approach, which is three times greater than that of the fastest flash storage chip today – eMMC 5.0.

UFS is projected to be the dominant mobile storage interface within just three years, with numerous designs expected to be in production in 2014 and 2015.

“UFS will bring substantial added performance and design flexibility to the next generation of mobile platform development, beginning in the second quarter,” said UFSA (Universal Flash Storage Association) President Lisa Rhoden. “Moreover, UFS’s wide-ranging set of improvements to the mobile storage space will provide a markedly improved experience for consumers,” she added.

“UFS is a major step forward in storage for next generation mobile systems and is expected to proliferate rapidly to mainstream mobile applications and beyond over the next few years,” said Forward Insights President, Gregory Wong. “UFS enables designers to dramatically improve system performance thereby enhancing the user experience of mobile devices.”

UFS is a high performance, scalable storage interface designed for use in computing and mobile systems requiring low power consumption. Its high speed serial interface and optimized protocol enable significant improvements in throughput and system performance. Dramatic growth in the mobile market coupled with an increasing market focus on multimedia applications continues to drive usage and memory bandwidth requirements. The new UFS v2.0 sharply improves upon existing JEDEC Flash memory storage standards to help address this demand.

UFS provides benefits not supported by other mobile storage interfaces. Using MIPI M-PHY as the physical layer allows scalability and variability in data rate, signal count and power requirements with multiple-lane support options in a full-duplex serial implementation. Command queuing, concurrent operations, increased IOPS and reduced read/write latencies provide additional performance improvements and security features that enhance multimedia transfer in mobile devices.

The JEDEC UFS v2.0 standard utilizes MIPI M-PHY v3.0 and MIPI UniPro v1.6 specifications as its building blocks. MIPI M-PHY is a serial interface with high bandwidth capabilities, specifically developed for mobile applications to obtain a low signal count combined with excellent power efficiency. It is targeted for use with multiple protocols, including UniPro ─ a layered protocol for interconnecting devices and components within mobile device systems, and UFS as the application layer. This integration is a result of close collaboration between JEDEC and the MIPI alliance, which has brought the benefits of these specifications to the mobile storage space.

JEDEC UFS v2.0 incorporates the INCITS T10 (SCSI) command set to provide a rich, powerful and proven set of commands that improves system performance. UFS improves OS responsiveness and enables a richer user experience when storing or playing multimedia files, in addition to providing greater power efficiency. UFS also enables more secure mobile platforms, which further encourages innovation in systems and applications.

About UFSA

The Universal Flash Storage Association (UFSA) was founded in 2010 as an open trade association to promote widespread adoption and acceptance of the UFS standard. Board of Director members include Agilent Technologies, Micron Technology, Phison Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Silicon Motion Technology and SK Hynix. For more information about UFSA: http://www.universalflash.org/

Sample support quotes from member companies

“We’ve seen an exponential growth of interest and an increase in the number of licensees of our UFS IP product portfolio during the latter half of 2013. UFS 2.0 with MPHY at Gear 3 speeds have given UFS a huge advantage in speed and power over competing standards. We expect this demand to accelerate during this year as UFS gains broader market acceptance beyond mobile. Arasan is geared to meet this increased demand,” said Zachi Friedman, Director of Marketing, Arasan Chip Systems, Inc.

“With more functionality being incorporated into mobile SoC designs, Synopsys is seeing significant demand for IP interfaces such as JEDEC UFS,” said John Koeter, vice president of marketing for IP and systems at Synopsys. “As the JEDEC UFS 2.0 standard gains widespread adoption in low-power mobile applications, SoC designers can continue to rely on Synopsys to provide silicon-proven mobile storage UFS and MIPI IP solutions that meet their low power, low latency, and compact footprint requirements.”

Contacts

Universal Flash Storage Association
Lisa Rhoden, 408-915-UFSA
UFSA President
info@universalflash.org

ARLINGTON, Va., USA – SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 – JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the publication of Universal Flash Storage (UFS) version 2.0. Developed for mobile applications and computing systems requiring high performance and low power consumption, the new UFS v2.0 standard offers increased link bandwidth for performance improvement, a security features extension as well as additional power saving features over the prior version. JESD220B Universal Flash Storage v2.0 may be downloaded free of charge from the JEDEC website: http://www.jedec.org/standards-documents/results/jesd220b.

UFS is a high performance interface designed for use in computing and mobile systems requiring low power consumption such as smart phones and tablets. Its high speed serial interface and optimized protocol enable significant improvements in throughput and system performance. Dramatic growth in the mobile market coupled with an increasing focus on multimedia applications continues to drive both usage models and memory bandwidth requirements, and UFS v2.0 builds on JEDEC Flash memory storage standards designed to help address this demand. In UFS v2.0, the link bandwidth has been increased from 300 MB/s in UFS v1.1 to up to 600 MB/s per lane, and multilane support has been introduced allowing up to 1.2 GB/s per each data transfer direction.

To achieve the highest performance and most power efficient data transport, JEDEC UFS aligns with industry–leading specifications from the MIPI^® Alliance to form its Interconnect Layer. This collaboration continues with UFS v2.0, which references the M-PHY^® Version 3.0 specification and the UniPro^SM Version 1.6 specification.

JEDEC has also published two complementary standards, JESD223B UFS Host Controller Interface (UFSHCI) version 2.0, and JESD223-1 UFS Host Controller Interface (UFSHCI), Unified Memory Extension. JESD223B is intended to simplify the design process by defining a standard host controller interface on which system designers can create a common host controller software driver layer to work with UFS host controller hardware from different manufacturers.  The HCI functionality also enables higher performance and power efficiency by minimizing the involvement of the host processor in the operation of the Flash storage subsystem.  The JESD223-1 UFSHCI Unified Memory Extension standard defines the interface between the UFS driver and the UFS host controller. In addition to the register interface, it defines data structures inside the system memory, which are used to exchange data, control and status information. Unified Memory offers the possibility to move device internal working memory into the system memory to reduce overall system cost and to improve device performance. JESD223B and JESD223-1 may also be downloaded free of charge from the JEDEC website.

“UFS v2.0 offers a clear value proposition to the industry, with significant performance improvements that will lead to a better overall mobile device user experience,” said Mian Quddus, Chairman of the JEDEC Board of Directors and the JC-64 Committee for Embedded Memory Storage and Removable Memory Cards. He added, “Memory manufacturers and leading consumer device and mobile OEMs strongly support UFS and have devoted countless hours to the development of this latest update.”

“UFS 2.0 will drive next generation mobile devices to new performance levels not available before,” said UFSA President Lisa Rhoden.  “The new JEDEC standard demonstrates the power of industry leaders working together to benefit consumers around the world.”

Industry Support

“The substantial performance improvement provided by UFS 2.0 will accelerate the already strong momentum of UFS in the mobile market,” said Andrew Haines, Vice President of Marketing for Arasan Chip Systems. “We are pleased to have contributed to JEDEC’s effort to rapidly evolve the standard in order to meet the needs of consumers and our UFS IP customers.”

“UFS technology continues to evolve with generation 2.0. With a higher bandwidth and features consolidation, the spec responds to emerging mobile challenges,” said Micron Senior Director for Wireless Solutions Group – Mobile Technology, Marco Dallabora. “Standardization activities have been focused to create a differentiating solution in the mobile storage arena.”

“The mobile industry has been waiting for much higher performing, high efficiency storage devices and Samsung sees the new UFS 2.0 JEDEC standard as empowering the production of flash devices that easily meet this need,” said JaeHyeong Lee, vice president, memory product planning & application engineering, Samsung Electronics. “The UFS 2.0 standard will spur development of the finest Samsung mobile storage devices, whose performance equates to that of high-performance solid state drives, and which will enable the next generation of high performance computing devices with a significantly better experience for mobile consumers.”

“Toshiba is expecting great potential on next generation mobile storage, UFS, and will continue our contribution to the market expansion and standardization by JEDEC through developing UFS memory device and supporting UFS host IP,” said Shigeo Ohshima, Technology Executive of Toshiba Corporation Semiconductor Company.  “With the advent of UFS 2.0, standardized Unified Memory Extension (UME) will enable further increase of performance, which Toshiba expects to trigger the expansion of UFS market from smartphone / tablet to more performance demanding markets, such as personal computers.”

About JEDEC

JEDEC is the leading developer of standards for the microelectronics industry. Over 4,000 participants, appointed by nearly 300 companies, work together in 50 JEDEC committees to meet the needs of every segment of the industry, manufacturers and consumers alike. The publications and standards that they generate are accepted throughout the world. All JEDEC standards are available online, at no charge. For more information, visit www.jedec.org.

MIPI^® Alliance, M-PHY^® and UniPro^SM are marks of MIPI Alliance, Inc.

Contact

Emily Desjardins

emilyd@jedec.org

703-907-7560

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UFS is a high performance interface for the next generation of mass storage devices to be used in mobile systems such as smart phones and tablets. Its high speed serial interface and optimized protocol enable dramatic improvements in throughput and system performance. JESD224 defines standard test cases and procedures for measuring the behavior of UFS devices and comparing that with the requirements of the UFS specification (JESD220A). Standardizing these procedures is important in assuring interoperability between device and host vendors.

The Universal Flash Storage Association (UFSA), an industry trade association promoting the market adoption of UFS technology, will incorporate the new test procedures described in the JESD224 document into the UFSA Compliance Test Specification for UFS product compliance certification.

“The publication of JESD224 is indicative of the support that the memory manufacturers, leading consumer device and mobile OEMs have for UFS, and their close collaboration within JEDEC towards broad and rapid adoption of UFS,” noted Mian Quddus, Chairman of the JEDEC Board of Directors and the JC-64 Committee for Embedded Memory Storage and Removable Memory Cards. “Providing this essential test support for device manufacturers is a critical aspect of that effort.”

“The UFSA has worked closely with JEDEC on UFS technology adoption and product compliance,” said Perry Keller, Chairman of the UFSA Compliance Committee. “The UFS protocol test procedures defined in JESD224 provides a strong technical foundation for the UFS product compliance certification program being created at the UFSA.”

About JEDEC

JEDEC is the leading developer of standards for the microelectronics industry. Over 4,000 participants, appointed by nearly 300 companies, work together in 50 JEDEC committees to meet the needs of every segment of the industry, manufacturers and consumers alike. The publications and standards that they generate are accepted throughout the world. All JEDEC standards are available online, at no charge. For more information, visit www.jedec.org.

About UFSA

The Universal Flash Storage Association (UFSA) was founded in 2010 as an open Trade Association to promote widespread industry adoption and acceptance of the UFS standard. The primary mission of the UFSA includes the promotion of UFS technology and infrastructure along with providing product compliance and UFS logo certification management.

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Offers Promise of Ultra-Fast Performance and Lower Power Consumption for Consumer Electronics Devices

New Standard to Publish in Early 2011; Offers Promise of Ultra-Fast Performance for Consumer Electronics Devices

ARLINGTON, Va., USA – DECEMBER 16, 2010 –JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced that it is moving towards publication of the next-generation flash memory standard, Universal Flash Storage (UFS). Major progress achieved at recent JEDEC committee meetings provides visibility on the anticipated UFS interface, which has been designed to be the most advanced specification for flash memory-based storage in mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet computers. Developed to help address the ever-increasing demand for improved device performance, UFS has been designed to initially enable data throughput of 300 megabytes per second (MB/s), and support command queuing features to raise the random read/write speeds. The standard will be finalized for public use within the next three months.

An explosion of data-intensive applications for mobile devices is driving the need for versatile storage solutions, and currently available flash storage options might not have the span to match overall system performance planned for future generation platforms. UFS will provide a dramatic change in architecture to increase performance while maintaining the benefits of low power consumption offered by existing solutions such ase•MMC^TM.

The new standard will be based on a high speed serial interface targeting up to 2.9 gigabits per second (Gbps) with up-scalability to 5.8Gbps. 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 significant reductions in device power consumption due to a low active power level and a near-zero idle power level.

The new standard also will support multiple commands with command queuing features and enabling a multi-thread programming paradigm, unlike conventional flash-based memory cards and embedded flash solutions such as e•MMC, which process one command at a time, limiting random read/write access performance.

Speaking from a recent technical committee meeting in San Francisco, Mian Quddus, Chairman of JEDEC’s JC-64 Committee for Flash Memory Modules, noted: “UFS as an industry-wide flash storage standard will address a number of market demands, including faster data access, lower power consumption, and improved performance for flash-based devices, benefiting device designers and consumers alike.”

JEDEC will offer an overview of UFS at its 2011 International CES^® conference program. For more information: http://www.cesweb.org/conferenceProgram/search/results.asp?categoryID=2048.

Work on UFS has been coordinated through a dedicated JEDEC committee, and is supported by principal consumer electronic and cell phone OEMs. In addition to UFS development work within JEDEC, some major participants have founded a new organization, the Universal Flash Storage Association (UFSA), to develop an UFS ecosystem and support environment for UFS devices and host applications.

Source: http://www.jedec.org/news/pressreleases/industry-aligns-behind-jedec-universal-flash-storage-ufs-standard