Samsung: Our new superfast flash memory doubles smartphone storage speeds

Samsung has kicked off mass production of its new super-fast 512GB eUFS 3.0 chips and says it will launch 1TB versions later this year. 

The chip will be the industry's first 512GB embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) 3.0 for mobile devices, which is twice as fast as eUFS 2.1. 

Samsung debuted its 512GB eUFS storage chips in 2017, which offered double the capacity of its 2016 eUFS, and quadruple the capacity of its first eUFS 2.0 chips in 2015.  

The key difference with the 512GB eUFS 3.0 chip is the speed enhancement, offering a sequential read rate of 2,100 megabytes per second (MB/s), or double what was available with eUFS 2.1. 

According to Samsung, the 512GB eUFS 3.0 storage chip is four times faster than a SATA solid-state drive and 20 times faster than most microSD cards. 

The higher speeds should allow a smartphone to transfer a 3.7GB Full HD movie to a PC's SSD in three seconds. Meanwhile the sequential write speeds are up 50 percent to 410MB/s. 

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Samsung will launch 512GB and 128GB eUFS 3.0 storage chips this month and will follow those up with 1TB and 256GB models in the second half of 2019.   

The 512GB eUFS 3.0 is made of eight stacks of 512-gigabit V-NAND and a controller. It features random read and write speeds up to 36 percent faster than the eUFS 2.1 specification and 630 times faster than general microSD cards. 

"Beginning mass production of our eUFS 3.0 lineup gives us a great advantage in the next-generation mobile market to which we are bringing a memory read speed that was before only available on ultra-slim laptops," said Cheol Choi, executive vice president of memory sales and marketing at Samsung Electronics. 

"As we expand our eUFS 3.0 offerings, including a 1TB version later this year, we expect to play a major role in accelerating momentum within the premium mobile market."

Samsung launched its 1TB eUFS 2.1 memory in January, which landed first in its new 1TB model of the Galaxy S10. 

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