Who Affects the Storage (ROM) Performance of Mobile Phones?

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Just like the new PCs have fully transitioned to SSDs, today’s smartphones have also undergone a significant iteration, transitioning from eMMC flash to UFS flash. So, who influences the performance of UFS flash?

Difference Between RAM and ROM

Even now, many friends are unclear about the differences between RAM and ROM. This article will provide a brief overview. RAM represents the phone’s memory (also known as “operational memory”), similar to memory sticks in PCs, but phone memory is a single chip. ROM represents storage space (also known as “flash memory”), akin to a hard drive in PCs, while the ROM in smartphones still exists in the form of a NAND flash chip.

Flash Memory Standards

Early smartphones were equipped with eMMC flash, which integrates a main controller on top of the NAND flash chip, packaging them into a single BGA chip to reduce space on the PCB motherboard. The latest standard for eMMC is eMMC 5.1, commonly found in entry-level smartphones under a thousand yuan, with a maximum read speed of around 400MB/s.

UFS is an advanced version of eMMC, consisting of an array storage module made of multiple flash chips, a controller, and a cache. UFS addresses the limitation of eMMC, which only supports half-duplex operation (read and write must be executed separately), allowing for full-duplex operation and thus doubling performance.

Currently, UFS exists in various standards including UFS2.0 (read speed 700MB/s), UFS2.1 (900MB/s), UFS2.2 (900MB/s), UFS3.0 (1700MB/s), and UFS3.1 (1900MB/s). UFS2.x is commonly found in mid-range products, while UFS3.x is the standard for high-end smartphones.

Flash Memory Channels

Like memory, UFS flash also has single-channel and dual-channel distinctions, with read and write performance differing by 30% to 50%. The good news is that today’s new smartphones are equipped with dual-channel UFS, so we only need to understand this briefly.

Write Turbo Technology

Write Turbo is a virtual technology introduced during the UFS3.0 era, and many brands’ flash enhancement technologies are largely based on its optimization. As we know, current smartphone flash uses TLC medium NAND chips, which have the advantage of storing 3 bits in each storage unit, allowing for larger capacities at a low cost, but the read and write speeds, especially write speeds, are far inferior to SLC NAND.

The so-called Write Turbo is essentially virtual SLC technology. It will virtualize part of the TLC flash capacity into SLC. When the phone writes data, the system will prioritize writing it to the virtual SLC space. Since each storage unit in the latter only needs to hold 1 bit of data, the write speed will significantly increase (read speed also sees a noticeable enhancement).

However, if the amount of data written at once exceeds the virtual SLC capacity, the read and write speeds will drop sharply to TLC levels.

Major smartphone manufacturers may differ in the capacity and scheduling rules of virtual SLC. For example, some manufacturers may choose a full virtual SLC approach, where the speed gradually decreases as the usage space increases. Therefore, even if all phones are equipped with UFS3.1 + Write Turbo flash, the actual experience may vary.

The latest mass-produced UFS2.2 is essentially UFS2.1 + Write Turbo, which can increase sustained write speeds from 250MB/s to over 500MB/s.

Disk Array Storage System

In addition to using Write Turbo virtual SLC, the Black Shark 4 Pro and Black Shark 4S series also introduce a new concept—a disk array storage system.

In simple terms, this phone not only has built-in flash memory chips but also adds an SSD chip from Phison, forming a RAID 0 array, which improves both read and write speeds by over 50%.

RAMDISK Disk Accelerator

The Black Shark 4 Pro and 4S series also feature a function known as RAMDISK disk accelerator. Many friends may be familiar with “RAMDISK”; previously, CFan reported multiple times on how to use idle memory in computers to simulate a RAMDISK “memory disk,” allowing programs saved in it to run quickly. However, each time the computer is shut down, the memory disk is cleared, and the programs must be reloaded after the next boot.

RAMDISK Virtual Hard Disk Software in the Computer Field

The principle of Black Shark’s RAMDISK disk accelerator is similar to that of a memory disk, which directly simulates flash storage space using memory, allowing game files to be read and written directly in memory, significantly enhancing the speed of game startup, loading, and operation. It is important to note that this feature is only available in high-end versions with 12GB or 16GB of memory; the 8GB version does not support RAMDISK technology.

The reason is simple: in the current application environment, 8GB of memory is already considered ample, leaving no extra space for virtual flash. Additionally, only one game can run in the high-speed mode based on RAMDISK technology at a time; switching to another game requires waiting for a certain period for the high-speed mode to mount.

Combining Flash Memory and RAM

As the “iron triangle” influencing mobile phone performance, the importance of flash memory and RAM is no less than that of the processor. Therefore, every technological innovation in these areas brings tangible improvements in actual experience. We hope that in the future, when purchasing mobile phones, everyone can pay more attention to the optimizations and upgrades in these two fields.

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