Automotive universal flash storage unlocks intelligent mobility with safety and reliability

Micron Technology, Inc. is now shipping qualification samples of its automotive universal flash storage (UFS) 4.1 solution to customers worldwide, facilitating rapid data access, robust reliability and enhanced safety and security for next-generation vehicles. Delivering bandwidth of 4.2GB/s – double that of its predecessor – the company's automotive UFS 4.1 accelerates data access for AI models, enhancing the in-cabin experience by powering features such as voice assistants, personalised infotainment and advanced safety alerts. This bandwidth in ADAS and autonomous vehicles also allows rich data capture from cameras, lidar and radar sensors to upload and feed AI model retraining and enhancement in the data centre.

This automotive UFS 4.1 is built with the company's sophisticated 9th-generation (G9) 3D NAND flash memory technology, providing high performance and capacity and supplying the market with the latest process technology to accelerate AI. With this rollout, Micron G9 NAND is the most advanced NAND in the industry to be qualified for rigorous automotive standards such as the AEC-Q1041, enabling the UFS 4.1 to meet the high bar demanded for automotive quality, safety and reliability.

"As the automotive industry shifts toward greater autonomy and more intelligent in-cabin experiences, robust high-performance storage is foundational to enabling the next generation of intelligent vehicles," said Kris Baxter, corporate vice president and general manager of Micron's Automotive and Embedded Business Unit. "Micron's automotive UFS 4.1 is engineered to deliver exceptional safety, reliability and performance, enabling the automotive industry to advance intelligent mobility and unlock AI at the edge."

As vehicles evolve into intelligent platforms, capabilities such as autonomous driving, enriched cabins and real-time AI applications demand bandwidth to start up quickly from ignition, instantly access and swap large language models for generative AI interactions, and log massive volumes of sensor data. High-performance solutions like the company's UFS 4.1 are vital to accelerating this intelligence at the source.