Measuring just 9mm by 13mm, Micron’s latest UFS 4.0 storage is the smallest storage chip that the company has designed. What is even more impressive is that the size reduction has not compromised its sequential read and write performance.
Micron’s latest UFS 4.0 storage chip is 20 percent smaller, company intentionally reduced package size after receiving feedback from smartphone makers
The small UFS 4.0 package was developed in Micron’s joint customer labs across the U.S., China, and Korea and built on its 232-layer 3D NAND technology. The reason for decreasing the chip size was that Micron received feedback from various unnamed smartphone manufacturers, as the compact form factor would allow these companies to cram in bigger batteries.
It is likely that Apple was not one of these partners because the company employs the use of NVMe storage in its iPhones and other products, not UFS 4.0. Micron had previously launched an 11mm by 13mm package in June last year, and with the latest iteration, the storage manufacturer has reduced the size by 20 percent. Fortunately, as mentioned above, the sequential read and write speeds are 4,300MB/s and 4,000MB/s, respectively, which is slightly slower than the NVMe Gen 4 standard, but these are not a downgrade.
In addition to the smaller size, Micron’s UFS 4.0 storage chip also consumes less power, with the company stating that footprint change can result in up to 25 percent more efficiency. There are other modes incorporated into the storage, which Micron has summarized below:
High-Performance Mode (HPM): This proprietary feature optimizes performance during intensive smartphone use by prioritizing critical tasks over background tasks. This results in over 25% improvement in speed when launching multiple applications thanks to twice-as-fast storage access during heavy usage.
One Button Refresh (OBR): OBR allows consumers to reap top performance from their devices longer by automatically cleaning and optimizing data so smartphones can continue operating in a like-new state. Users will benefit from faster read/write performance, resulting in 10% faster app launches5, snappy camera roll access and seamless multi-tasking.
Zoned UFS (ZUFS): Micron UFS 4.0 now allows the host to specify different zones where data can be stored, improving the usefulness of the device over time. This ZUFS approach reduces write amplification to maximize the finite cycles of data that devices can program and erase without degrading device performance — ultimately extending the smartphone life span while keeping devices feeling like new for longer.
Micron states that its latest UFS 4.0 storage chip will be available in capacities of 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. These samples are already being shipped to the company’s partners, and we will likely witness this technology in upcoming high-end smartphones.
