Samsung To Push Speedy 512GB UFS 3.0 Storage In 2019, LPDDR5 Memory Arrives In 2020
Samsung is not letting any grass grow under its feet. Looking ahead to next year and beyond, the South Korean electronics manufacturer has several things in store. Beyond new smartphones and potentially a laptop with a foldable display, Samsung is readying a batch of Unified File Storage (UFS) 3.0 products and new memory.
Jay Oh, head of mobile memory product planning at Samsung, announced at Qualcomm's 4G/5G Summit in Hong Kong that UFS 3.0 will come in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities. These are high speed storage solutions that will find their way into smartphones, and presumably future Galaxy handsets like the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy Note 10, if we're to speculate.
As of right now, mobile devices typically sport UFS 2.1 storage. However, UFS 3.0 is set to deliver a significant speed increase—Samsung claims it will double the memory bandwidth. Looking even further ahead, Micron said it expects phones with 1TB of UFS 3.0 storage to arrive in 2021 (devices that come out before then with 1TB of storage are likely using dual 512GB modules).
In addition to faster internal storage, Samsung and Micron are both working on LPDDR5 memory chips, which they expect to deploy in 2020. LPDDR5 kicks bandwidth up a notch—anywhere from 44GB/s to 51.2GB/s—while boasting a 20 percent decrease in power consumption. We don't expect the switch to LPDDR5 to have a significant impact on battery life, but better performance is always appreciated.
