Computer

Your future Chromebook will have storage twice as fast

We call flash memory any persistent storage system, whose data is not lost when the computer is turned off, which is based on memory chips. However, there are many different types under the same consumption. These usually differ in speed, when transferring data and, therefore, in their level of consumption. Well, the flash memory for UFS 4.0 storage has just been introduced.

The biggest advantage of flash memory, whatever type it is, is its access speed. Both for the fact of not using mobile mechanisms, and for the enormous bandwidth of its interfaces. Especially the NVMe memories used in the fastest SSDs for PCs. However, there is the problem that the transfer of information is what consumes the most energy and not exactly storing the data. Which is a problem in devices that seek to combine performance and low consumption.

That is why there are different flash memories on the market, the slowest and simplest being the eMMC, which has been resisting for years despite having an expiration date due to its low transfer speed. However, it holds up well on devices that don’t need high transfer speeds. At the other extreme, instead, we have NVMe SSDs with transfer speeds tens of times higher than the previous case. Well, the UFS memory is between the previous two in terms of consumption and speed. Being ideal for low consumption laptops.

What does the new UFS 4.0 flash memory bring us?

The first thing we have to take into account is that we are facing a JEDEC standard, the consortium in charge of creating the common specifications for memory chips. Whether these memories are volatile, known as RAM, or non-volatile, called Flash. In the case with which we find ourselves, UFS 4.0, this brings us important changes with respect to version 3.1 of the standard, the most advanced to date.

UFS 4.0 1TB Samsung

The target market for UFS 4.0 is high end mobile phoneshowever, we could see it in laptops also and especially in Chromebooks. Based on the 7th generation V-NAND in the case of Samsung, It can reach 4.2 GB/s speed when writing data sequentially Y 2.8 GB/s randomly. So the figures double the speed. Yes, to get it have reduced by up to 46% the consumption per transmitted bit. Other target markets for this type of flash memory? Virtual and/or augmented reality helmets with internal processing capacity, as well as cars.

Its bandwidth means that many laptops that are halfway between those designed for performance and portability could adopt it. However, despite the fact that the standard is finished, we must start from the basis that production will not begin until the third quarter of this year. This means that we will have to wait until the end of the year or rather next year to see the first devices to use it. The storage capacity per chip? Up to 1TB of storage. In any case, we are left wondering if UFS 4.0 memory will replace NVMe in low-end gaming laptops.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *