Industry group supports spec for removable memory cards

A group of memory manufacturers has offered their support for the creation of the industry specification for removable memory cardsand embedded memory solutions, dubbed Universal Flash Storage (UFS) being standardized by the JEDECSolid State Technology Association.

Included in the group are MicronTechnology Inc., Nokia, Samsung Electronics, Sony Ericsson, SpansionInc., STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments Inc.

According to the group, UFS will offer a solution to support very low access times required for memories, as well as enabling high-speed access to large multimedia files, while reducing power-consumption in consumer electronic devices. The target performance level is expected to be a significant advancement beyond that of the varied flash cards popular today. Today, users experience a 3min access time for a 90min (4GByte) high-definition movie. With the new standard, this access time is expected to last a few seconds only.

"Universal standards hold a pivotal role in the development of more cost-efficient and better designed products. Standardization of flash-based technologies will be crucial in determining how fast storage devices will be able to fully support industry demand for higher densities and faster transmission speeds," said Frankie Roohparvar, VP of NAND development for Micron Technology.

Major applications including mobile handsets, digital still cameras and other CE devices will benefit from the convenience of a universal open standard specification that can reduce the time-consuming process of enabling interoperability among various types of removable and embedded memory solutions at the system level. UFS is planned to provide consumers in the future with the convenience of a unified removable memory card that can be shared among various mobile, portable and other CE devices without the need for any adaptors.

Explains George Minassian, VP of strategic planning and systems engineering, wireless solutions division at Spansion, the new spec "not only provides significantly higher bandwidth, but also supports low latency accesses and is positioned to provide an essential infrastructure in future mobile devices."

The UFS standard will be finalized in 2009.