The milestone sets a benchmark for the next-generation mobile memory market as the enhanced performance is expected to allow mobile device users with reduced latency and faster response times when running large language models (LLMs) in on-device AI environments

“In the era of on-device AI, storage devices are evolving into a key driver defining AI experiences,” said Jangseok Choi, head of Memory Product Planning at Samsung Electronics. “As we successfully move beyond the development stage of the industry’s first UFS 5.0 solution, Samsung is setting a new standard for storage on the go and will continue to drive innovation for the next-generation mobile platform market.”

Generative AI is rapidly shifting from the cloud to the device, driving a surge in the scale of data required for local processing. As a result, storage is evolving from a medium used primarily to store data to core infrastructure that supports AI computation.

Samsung’s UFS 5.0 integrates the latest embedded memory interface standard from JEDEC, achieving high performance levels with a bandwidth of up to 10.8 gigabytes per second (GB/s).

The new storage solution delivers a sequential read speed of up to 10.8GB/s and a sequential write speed of up to 9.5 GB/s, speeds that are respectively more than twice as fast as those of the previous UFS 4.1 standard. This significant advancement enables much faster storage and processing of large data for on-device AI applications.

Power efficiency in Samsung’s UFS 5.0 is also improved compared to the company’s UFS 4.1 solution. This is achieved by implementing a number of new innovations, including clock gating and multi-voltage technologies. These enhancements help to considerably reduce the power required to transfer the same amount of data, drastically lowering overall power consumption and extending the battery life of next-generation mobile devices.

Samsung has engineered the UFS 5.0 solution into an ultra-compact package measuring just 7.5mm x 13mm x 0.9mm — making it 16.7% smaller than its predecessor. This form factor significantly boosts design flexibility and internal space utilization for a wide range of applications, including mobile, wearable and extended reality (XR) devices.

Samsung will begin mass production of its UFS 5.0 in the fourth quarter of this year in a variety of capacities up to one terabyte (TB). Through this breakthrough in UFS 5.0 technology, Samsung continues to innovate and plans to scale up supply to meet the growth of next-generation device markets.