New Flash Memory Standard on the Way

Sony, Nokia and Samsung are among the names backing Universal Flash Storage, which could be many times faster than existing flash memory.

While Sony’s SxS memory standard hasn’t quite taken off yet, it hasn’t stopped the consumer electronics giant from getting in on the next wave of flash memory development [PDF] in cooperation with five other companies. Micron Technology, Nokia, Samsung, Spansion Inc., STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments, along with Sony, announced Thursday that they would develop a new type of removable and embedded flash memory called Universal Flash Storage (UFS).

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, an open-standards organization in the semiconductor industry, will standardize the new specification. Development goals for UFS include cutting access time and power consumption to accommodate for the demand for large multimedia files. While accessing a 4GB movie on today’s flash cards would take about three minutes, UFS cards should be able to access the same data in seconds.

Unfortunately, the technology to make it happen won’t appear overnight. The manufacturers behind UFS hope to have it finalized by 2009 with draft specifications appearing in 2008.