UFS 2.1 vs 3.0 vs eMMC 5.0 Specfications and Feature Comparisons

Smartphones have evolved a lot. Most of the smartphones and tablets use the traditional eMMC NAND flash to store information. But if you have come across any flagship phone, you must have heard the term UFS storage and to be more specific UFS 2.1. But, already, there is a new generation of UFS under development by Samsung named as UFS 3.0. In this post, we are going to compare the UFS 2.1 vs 3.0.

Also Read: Phones with UFS 2.0

Inbuilt storage in smartphones often considered as an essential part when it comes to performance. UFS is undoubtedly the future of the smartphones. Though as of now this technology is only limited to high-end phones. But soon you will also see UFS storage in the midrange segments as well. One must be thinking, what is next for the flagship phones of 2019 onwards. Well UFS 3.0 is the latest technology that should give a significant boost to IO’s on phones.

UFS 2.1 vs 3.0 vs eMMC 5.0

UFS or Universal Flash Storage is a flash storage specification that is used in cameras, high-end smartphones and other data-heavy devices. This technology is two times faster than the eMMC 5.1 that we see these days in most of the devices. The main reason to incorporate the UFS specification is to increase the data speeds and reliability. Unlike the other eMMC and ePOP, UFS allows OS to send multiple reads and write requests to the flash memory simultaneously over a serial bus.

Source: Samsung

This results in faster booting, quicker file transfer, speedier loading of massive games and apps. UFS offers seamless multitasking that allows the user to switch between apps and tasks in justs a flick on an eye. In short, UFS 2.1 is way better than the eMMC standard and, UFS 3.0 is undoubtedly the future and much-needed successor considering the amount of RAM and powerful hardware smartphones packs in today’s world.

UFS was initially introduced back in 2011, and Samsung launched its memory cards based on the UFS 1.0 standard. Then come UFS 1.1, UFS 2.0 and the current generation UFS 2.1. Over time with newer generations read and write speeds have increased a lot and so did the NAND fabrication process. And this time we more excited about the UFS 3.0. Here are the expected speeds below:

Source: Samsung

UFS 3.0 which is still under development aims to improve the speed by adding the layer stacking from 48 to 64. Not only that, there will be a 3-bit V-NAND flash memory chip that helps in keeping the power consumption under control. UFS 2.1 uses 2.7 to 3.6V for its operation, but the UFS 3.0 aims to work at a much lower 2.5V. This will result in faster data transfer without churning much juice from the battery.

A single lane in UFS 3.0 can carry up to 11.6 Gbps of data, and two lanes can carry up to 23.2 Gbps of data which is twice what UFS 2.1 could offer. UFS 3.0 will also support extended temperature range of -40°C to 105°C. This will eradicate some of the problems of the automotive market up to some extent.

As per the reports, it is expected that UFS 3.0 will be twice as faster as the UFS 2.1 with 2666 MB/s bandwidth which is double of what its predecessor delivers. But this technology will still take a couple of months to be ready. But when will the smartphone manufacturers pick this up, is yet unknown – No timeframes. With the fast evolving UFS, the future of eMMC will be limited to only budget smartphones in 2019.