JEDEC has officially introduced a new generation of universal flash memory for data storage – UFS 5.0, along with the accompanying host controller interface standard UFSHCI 5.0. The JESD220H and JESD223G specifications are already available for download on the organization’s official website.
UFS 5.0 is developed for mobile devices, automotive systems and modern computing platforms that require high performance and low power consumption. Although it maintains hardware compatibility with the UFS 4.x generation, the new standard brings a significant jump in bandwidth and overall performance, thanks to an improved serial interface and optimized protocols.
Key improvements to the UFS 5.0 standard
The biggest innovation is the drastic increase in sequential speeds – UFS 5.0 reaches up to 10.8 GB/s when reading and writing, which makes it particularly suitable for AI workloads and demanding applications that use data storage intensively.
At the reliability level, the standard introduces improved signal and voltage integrity through the integration of an automatic mechanism for their adaptation, as well as separate voltage branches that reduce interference between the physical part of the device (PHY) and the memory subsystem. This not only increases stability at high speeds, but also simplifies system design.
Data security has been improved by introducing an inline hashing mechanism, which checks the integrity directly during data transmission, enabling faster and more efficient detection of errors or potential manipulations in the work.
Like previous generations, UFS 5.0 relies on MIPI Alliance standards. The new standard uses the MIPI M-PHY v6.0 physical part with PAM4 signaling and HS-G6 mode, which doubles the maximum throughput per channel compared to the previous generation. In addition, MIPI UniPro v3.0 enables unidirectional throughput of up to 46.6 Gb/s per channel.
Memory manufacturer Kioxia has already confirmed that samples of UFS 5.0 flash memory have been delivered to partners, which hints that the commercial implementation of the new generation of memory for mobile devices is already on the threshold.