Samsung begins mass production of 256GB embedded Universal Flash Storage for cars

Samsung Electronics announced on Thursday that it had begun production of a 256GB embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) solution for use in next-generation cars. The announcement came five months after the launch of the predecessor, the 128GB eUFS version, in September last year.

According to the South Korean tech giant, the company is now shipping the newly produced 256GB eUFS to car makers preparing the market for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), next-generation infotainment systems and new-age dashboards in luxury vehicles.

Considering the fact that heat resistance is crucial for automotive memory applications, Samsung has extended the temperature range in the memory chip to minus 40 degree Celsius and 105 degree Celsius for both operational and power-saving modes.

In comparison, the conventional embedded multimedia card (eMMC) 5.1 solutions generally cover minus 25 degree Celsius to 85 degree Celsius for vehicles in operation, and minus 40 degree Celsius to 85 degree Celsius when in idle or power-saving mode.

The new 256GB eUFS also comes with Samsung's temperature notification feature. Whenever the device temperature exceeds 105 degree Celsius or any pre-set level, the sensor will notify the host application processor, which will then regulate its clock speed to lower the temperature to an acceptable level.

Like the 128GB eUFS version, the 256GB eUFS can also reach 850 megabytes (MB) per second, and a random reading speed of 45,000 input/output operations per second. There is also a data refresh feature, which speeds up processing and enables relocating older data to other less-used cells.

"Starting with high-end vehicles, we expect to expand our business portfolio across the entire automotive market, while accelerating growth in the premium memory segment," Kyoung Hwan Han, vice president of NAND marketing at Samsung Electronics, said in a statement.