JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, a global leader in microelectronics industry standards, has announced that it is in the final stages of developing the next-generation Universal Flash Storage (UFS) standard, UFS 5.0 as the successor to UFS 4.0/4.1. This new version is designed for mobile applications and computing systems that require high performance with low power consumption.
UFS 5.0 aims to provide significantly faster data access and improved overall performance compared to the current UFS 4.x standards, while critically maintaining hardware compatibility.
UFS technology is widely used in power-sensitive applications such as smartphones, wearables, automotive systems, edge computing, and gaming consoles due to its high-speed serial interface and optimized protocol.
Key features anticipated in the UFS 5.0 standard include:
- Increased Performance: Sequential performance is expected to reach up to 10.8 GB/s, specifically to meet the growing demands of artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
- Improved Reliability: The standard will integrate link equalization to ensure more reliable signal integrity.
- Enhanced System Integration: A distinct power supply rail will be introduced to provide noise isolation between the PHY and the memory subsystem, simplifying system design.
- Greater Security: The inclusion of Inline Hashing will offer enhanced data security.
Several of these features, including the performance increase and link equalization, are the result of a collaboration between JEDEC and the MIPI Alliance. JEDEC has indicated that it is continuing to evaluate additional features for further enhancements before the standard is officially published.