New memory card format announced
14 September 2007 by Olav Hellesø-Knutsen Lleading mobile phone manufactures and semiconductor providers has announced that they will support the creation of a new memory card format. The standard is named Universal Flash Storage (UFS) and will be finalized in 2009 Micron Technology, Inc., Nokia, Samsung Electronics, Sony Ericsson, Spansion Inc., STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments announced today that they support the creation of a far-ranging industry specification for removable memory cards and embedded memory solutions being standardized by the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association (JEDEC), a leading open-standards organization in the semiconductor industry. JEDEC is well known for its expertise in the standardization of component technologies and solutions. The new specification, dubbed Universal Flash Storage (UFS), reflects the industry's need for a universal memory solution that removes the need for adaptors to accommodate different removable memory card sizes. Widespread demand for higher densities and higher performance, plus the surging popularity of multimedia content, is accelerating the need for advanced memory solutions as removable card or embedded formats. UFS will provide a revolutionary leap towards supporting 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 (CE) 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 three-minute access time for a 90-minute (4 Gigabyte) high-definition movie; with the new standard, this would be reduced to a few seconds.  Major applications such as mobile handsets, digital still cameras and other CE devices will benefit from the convenience of a universal open standard based specification that is intended to reduce the time-consuming process of enabling interoperability among the 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.The UFS standard is expected to be finalized in 2009. Company quotes Micron Technology "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 Roohparver, vice president of NAND development for Micron Technology. Nokia "Nokia will actively participate in the development of the UFS specification, which aims to provide future mobile devices with high performance and flexibility. This collaborative UFS effort will provide the industry with an open standard mass memory solution with optimal performance and interoperability," said Seppo Lamberg, Senior Vice President, Technology Platforms, Nokia. Samsung Electronics "The proposed UFS specification is good news to card manufacturers and set designers alike. The proliferating use of flash memory as a storage medium underscores the importance of introducing a universal connectivity to memory cards where high performance and reliability are critical," said Jon Kang, President, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. "Samsung's Mobile handset division is happy to stand with our peers in support of standard technology for removable memory devices that will result in much simpler interconnectivity," said W.S. Lee, vice president, handset R&D planning, Telecommunication Network Business, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Spansion "Spansion, as the worldwide leader in pure-play Flash memory solutions, endorses the development of the versatile UFS bus," said George Minassian, vice president of Strategic Planning and Systems Engineering, Wireless Solutions Division at Spansion. "It not only provides significantly higher bandwidth, but also supports low latency accesses and is positioned to provide an essential infrastructure in future mobile devices." STMicroelectronics "STMicroelectronics' Flash Memory Group has been a strong believer in this approach since the beginning of the storage experience and we're pleased we can contribute to this important standardization activity. We think that this Universal Standard will cover the needs of the embedded and removable markets for many years," said Giuseppe Crisenza NAND Flash Group General Manager. About Micron Micron Technology, Inc., is one of the world's leading providers of advanced semiconductor solutions. Through its worldwide operations, Micron manufactures and markets DRAMs, NAND flash memory, CMOS image sensors, other semiconductor components, and memory modules for use in leading-edge computing, consumer, networking, and mobile products. Micron's common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the MU symbol. To learn more about Micron Technology, Inc., visit www.micron.com. About Nokia Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. Nokia makes a wide range of mobile devices and provides people with experiences in music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games and business mobility through these devices. Nokia also provides equipment, solutions and services for communications networks. About Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2006 parent company sales of US$63.4 billion and net income of US$8.5 billion. Employing approximately 138,000 people in 124 offices in 56 countries, the company consists of five main business units: Digital Media Business, LCD Business, Semiconductor Business, Telecommunication Network Business, and Digital Appliance Business. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com About Sony Ericsson Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications serves the global communications market with innovative and feature-rich mobile phones, accessories and PC-cards. Established as a joint venture by Sony and Ericsson in 2001, with global corporate functions located in London, including R&D sites in Europe, Japan, China and America, Sony Ericsson celebrated the 5th anniversary of the start of the joint venture on 1st October, 2006. Sony Ericsson is the global title sponsor of the Women's Tennis Association, and works with the Association to promote the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour in over 80 cities during the year. For more information on Sony Ericsson, please visit www.sonyericsson.com About Spansion Spansion is a leading Flash memory solutions provider, dedicated to enabling, storing and protecting digital content in wireless, automotive, networking and consumer electronics applications. Spansion, previously a joint venture of AMD and Fujitsu, is the largest company in the world dedicated exclusively to designing, developing, manufacturing, marketing and selling Flash memory solutions. For more information, visit www.spansion.com. About STMicroelectronics STMicroelectronics is a global leader in developing and delivering semiconductor solutions across the spectrum of microelectronics applications. An unrivalled combination of silicon and system expertise, manufacturing strength, Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio and strategic partners positions the Company at the forefront of System-on-Chip (SoC) technology and its products play a key role in enabling today's convergence markets. The Company's shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, on Euronext Paris and on the Milan Stock Exchange. In 2006, the Company's net revenues were $9.85 billion and net earnings were $782 million. Further information on ST can be found at www.st.com. About Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated provides innovative DSP and analog technologies to meet our customers' real world signal processing requirements. In addition to Semiconductor, the company includes the Education Technology business. TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing, design or sales operations in more than 25 countries. More information is located on the World Wide Web at www.ti.com Comments On 28 Sep 23:26 slugworth1987 wrote if they make a singe format there will be no prices to do eachother out so you may end up paying out the nose for no reason n i like the way sony refuse to comment lol they got the right idea i think so what if theres many types i use SD XD MS Pro Duo and Micro SD but it doesnt bother me because i use data cables which are provided by the supplyer so i dont have to remove them all the time thats y we have hard drives so we can empty the cards and refil em again its not hard its commen sence On 27 Sep 18:14 skylineR35 wrote hmmm... the battle between memory cards is planned to cease huh?? on the other hand, optical drive namely Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are fighting each other to gain popularity. i really hope all of this shyt will eventually solved. not by joining together though, but with the more usage of "compatibility". many single-slot card reader could read SD MMC and MSD/PD at once while nowadays' DVD drive could read DVD+, DVD-and DVD-RAM. hence there's no need to create UFS imo. more importantly, to create devices that could read multiple media is more than enough. (i.e. if a phone could read microSD and M2 like K850.) On 26 Sep 22:35 EPDM wrote Sony will never ditch their own memory-stick based storage media. So I doubt that they will actively support this. Gerry, I understand what this format is supposed to do. But that's what ALL those formats try to accomplish. In the mean time it IS yet another format. I too am fed up with this bullshit. I currently have 3 storage formats in use (CF, SD and MS duo). While understand the need for small cards compared to CF. It should have stopped after SD. In fact I too believe that any more formats will only cause market-rejection from consumers and will harm ALL sales for consumer products that need memory cards. I too will start to BOYCOT new products that uses cards that I don't have. I HAS to stop. NOW. Just my 2 cents On 19 Sep 01:09 Gerry wrote Rolandlau, dont you understand this news? did you read it? this is a fix to the problem of too many formats. the idea is that every company uses the same format so people like yourself dont have to carry 10 different cards around at once. man... On 18 Sep 08:08 RolandLau wrote For the last 6 years I have changed digital camaras and mobile handphones and I landed myself with more than 10 different memory storage cards with different density. In my hand I have the following cards collected thru the years, CF, MS, XD, MMC, SD, MiniSD, MMCmobile, microSD & MS-ProDuo. I saw somehwere advertised a new card called MiMMC and now a new format UFS memory card. I think the WW consumers are at the mercy of the leading handphone manufacturers and semiconductor manufacturers. So please no more new cards. On 18 Sep 00:53 Sevemas wrote Well, i think is a great step, toward that companies start to share the good stuff about speed, i hope that the same companies try to get also a standard connector format, so we can see a lot of accessories like ipod have. On 17 Sep 17:56 GloriaButterworth wrote Large capacity is just around the corner - the packaging folks are working overtime to make it happen. On 17 Sep 17:18 dualist wrote @Chrispy & JP: It's not USF - it's UFS! On 17 Sep 09:29 JP wrote Maybe USF because UFS is already "taken", Unix File System. On 16 Sep 19:35 govigov wrote what is it? USF or UFS ? i am confused :???: On 16 Sep 14:54 NitroFan wrote I bet Sony Ericsson are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of being able to get their customers to have tobuy into yet another storage platform, let have a count up. Duo, Duo Pro, M2 and now USF lovely jubley On 16 Sep 03:57 mcrosser wrote So Sony Ericsson isn't giving it's opinion like everyone else?? On 16 Sep 03:22 Chrispy wrote universal memory format. I won't be complaining if this one makes it. on another note, how does USF stand for Universal Flash Storage? On 16 Sep 02:56 hanugro wrote Yet another format. Just make sure it will be used in all mobile phone plaese. In the mean time I won't buying anymore memory card. On 15 Sep 03:17 Duplag wrote At the rate of current data usage and present technology examples, you can rest assure in 2009 there will be indeed Large capacity. Perhaps even as intresting as when we saw 512mb priced quite high a few years a go or even as much as 64mb back in 2002. Comparing to our average 2gb currently doing the rounds these days, it is quite fascinating how pricing and advancing decline and grows so extrodinary. On 14 Sep 15:30 fpc wrote hope it will support large capacities like 4GB or 6 or maybe 8 |
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