UFS Storage: Benefits and Advantages of UFS 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, and 3.1

This article explores the benefits and advantages of Universal Flash Storage (UFS) devices, focusing on versions 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, and 3.1. We’ll cover how UFS excels in speed, performance, and power consumption.

What is UFS Storage?

Introduction:

Embedded MultiMediaCard (e-MMC) faced interface speed limitations due to its bus architecture, operating in half-duplex mode with 8 I/Os. To address this, the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association introduced the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) standard in various versions.

UFS is designed as the successor to e-MMC, utilizing a full-duplex serial interface. It has become a prominent storage solution in mobile phones, offering advantages similar to SATA and SSD memory devices. A key feature of UFS is its support for command queuing. Toshiba was the first company to introduce and support UFS, enabling chipset and OS vendors to develop interfaces compliant with version 1.1. Qualcomm has integrated UFS memory capabilities into their mobile SoCs. Samsung has already developed UFS storage devices with capacities of 32 GB, 64 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB.

Different versions of UFS exist, including 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, and 3.1, each supporting different speeds and Input/Output Operations per Second (IOPS). Detailed specifications for UFS interfaces can be found on the JEDEC website.

Benefits and Advantages of UFS Storage

Here’s a breakdown of the key benefits of UFS Storage:

• Reduced Data Transfer Latency: UFS offers significantly better data transfer times (latency) – approximately 50% less than eMMC.
• Lower Power Consumption: UFS is designed for low power consumption, leading to improved battery life in mobile devices utilizing this type of memory storage.
• Increased Speed and Bandwidth: UFS provides greater speed (in Mbps) or bandwidth during data transfer between the host and the storage device. This improvement is almost three times that of eMMC 5.1.
• Higher IOPS: UFS supports a higher number of input/output operations per second (IOPS) compared to eMMC of the same size.
• Simplified Hardware Complexity: The serial interface used by UFS results in less hardware complexity.
• Full Duplex Operation: UFS employs a full-duplex topology, enabling simultaneous reading and writing operations, unlike the half-duplex nature of e-MMC.
• Command Queuing Support: UFS supports command queuing, allowing the host system to send a series of read and write commands to the UFS device for processing while the host system handles other tasks concurrently.
• Growing Adoption in Mobile Products: UFS is becoming increasingly prevalent in mobile products as network speeds continually increase due to technological advancements.
• Overcoming Download Time Limitations: UFS, with its 6Gbps bandwidth, addresses the limitations of slow memory affecting download times over Wi-Fi or USB connections.

While there aren’t inherent drawbacks to UFS storage devices, it’s worth noting that newer versions (e.g., UFS 3.1) offer improvements and enhancements over previous versions (e.g., UFS 3.0).