In many ways, flash memory has become the darling of the storage industry. Not only do a huge variety of devices use flash for basic data storage, we're already seeing movement towards both SSDs (Solid State Drives) or hybrid drives that marry flash to a traditional hard drive seeking the best of both worlds when it comes to overall performance. All the hype around flash memory, however, doesn't translate into a unified flash product—which is why Nokia is leading a new drive to unify flash.
Nokia is partnering with some of its own competitors (Samsung and Sony Ericsson) as well as chip makers such as Micron, Spansion, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments to promote a single flash storage technology aimed at mobile phones. Currently dubbed Universal Flash Storage, the goal is to eliminate the need for various card readers and translation devices for the number of media currently available.
"Nokia will actively participate in the development of the UFS specification, which aims to provide future mobile devices with high performance and flexibility," said Seppo Lamberg, Nokia SVP of technology platforms. "This collaborative UFS effort will provide the industry with an open standard mass memory solution with optimal performance and interoperability."
Nokia's goal with UFS is simple: support very low memory access times, lower power consumption, and increase data retrieval speeds beyond those of current flash storage products. Nokia says that it wants to reduce access times for a 90-minute HD movie to a few seconds, something the company says currently takes as long as three minutes under current flash standards.
The new Universal Flash Storage standard is expected to be complete in 2009 with a shipping version debuting at some point after that, hopefully with both increased performance and reliability over current flash systems. If the standard is successful, it might succeed in what is, overall, an extremely fragmented market.
Even discounting the gap between the newer NAND standard and older NOR technology, Wikipedia lists 18 total memory card formats. Obviously some of these are far more prevalent on the market than others, but there's no reason for 18 separate formats to exist, period. With many of the 18 formats entrenched in the market, UFS is going have an uphill fight. But if Nokia is able to get other handset makers to support it—and Samsung and Sony Ericsson are on board—it may have a chance.
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