Samsung Unveils 256GB UFS 2.0 Memory Chips For Mobile Devices

Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it started to mass produce the industry’s first 256-gigabyte (GB) universal flash storage (UFS) memory chip for smartphones this month, paving the way to expand the premium memory market.

The South Korean tech giant said the new Universal Flash Storage (UFS) boasts speed that is nine times faster than high-performance micro SD cards, or two times compared to budget solid state drives for laptops. The flash storage memory can handle up to 45,000 input operations or 40,000 output operations per second. The new chips will use two lines to transfer data at a scorching 850MB per second and consume 50% less power. As a result, the new 256GB UFS memory is capable of supporting UHD video playback and multitasking functionality on large-screen mobile devices, such as watching 4K Ultra HD movies on a split screen, while searching image files or downloading video clips.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 6 is the next flagship device that Samsung will announce later this year and now it looks like it could come with 256GB of storage.

“We are determined to push the competitive edge in premium storage lineups by moving aggressively to enhance performance and capacity”.

On top of the new increased capacity and speed, the chip is also extremely compact, taking up even less space than an external MicroSD card. Samsung a year ago announced the 128GB of the UFS 2.0 chip, which was then used in the Samsung Galaxy S6; so why not do the same for the Galaxy S7? Within this new storage environment, mobile users will get to take full advantage of the performance benefits of Samsung’s latest UFS memory.

Furthermore, Samsung claims that with the rise of USB 3.0 support that has been adopted by many handset manufacturers, the interface in the UFS will allow sending a 5GB-equivalent full HD video in 12 seconds. Well, Samsung keeps mum on this, but we have an idea.