JEDEC Advances Universal Flash Storage (UFS) Removable Card Standard 3.0

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the worldwide leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the publication of JESD220-2B Universal Flash Storage (UFS) Card Extension Standard 3.0.

This new version of the removable memory card standard defines functionality closely aligned with the popular UFS 3.0 embedded device standard already widely recognized in many high-end mobile and consumer-focused applications. JESD220-2B is now available for download from the JEDEC website.

UFS is a prominent high-performance interface designed for use in applications where power consumption needs to be minimized, including mobile systems such as smartphones and tablets as well as for automotive and IOT applications. Its high-speed serial interface and optimized protocol enable major improvements in throughput and system performance.The JESD220-2B UFS 3.0 card standard provides a standardized platform for leading-edge removable storage. It offers the following substantial improvements over the prior version of the Flash memory standard, including:

• Performance: JESD220-2B doubles the maximum interface performance to 1.2 Gigabytes per second (GB/s) from a maximum of 600 Megabytes per second (MB/s) for the prior version.
• Boot Support: UFS Card 3.0 now offers boot support, allowing products to boot more quickly and easily through the use of a UFS Card.
• Interoperability: To improve interoperability and sharply reduce development complexities, JESD220-2B simplifies selected features, including the removal of features not needed for the removable card such as Product State Awareness (PSA), Replay Protected Memory Block (RPMB), Context, Priority of Logical Unit, and Dynamic Capacity. UFS Card 3.0 also minimizes the number of Logical Units to simplify storage management.

Examples of potential use cases include:

• Data-intensive smartphone applications
• Recording data from multiple, hi-resolution video cameras simultaneously (high-end drones, automotive applications)
• Storage for automotive applications such as infotainment, ADAS, navigation, and black box recordings

"JEDEC's new UFS card standard offers the same high-end functionality as the highly popular UFS embedded device standard, in a convenient card format that's well suited for a variety of removable applications," 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, "Supporting multiple, simultaneous data-intensive functions on a smartphone, or for use as an easily extendable storage solution within the automotive market, are just two examples of the versatility of UFS Card 3.0".