Current trends indicate JEDEC UFS has made it first to market leaving its other counterparts MIPI CSI3 and MIPI DSI2 behind in the race to harness the advantages of MIPI UniPro and MIPI M-PHY.
At Arrow Devices, recently a casual lunch conversation turned in to intense debate on the reasons behind early adoption of JEDEC UFS over the MIPI CSI3 and MIPI DSI2. We compared these three technologies, as all three are end applications that will make use of MIPI UniPro and MIPI M-PHY as its service delivery mechanism.
So what led to the faster adoption of JEDEC UFS over MIPI CSI3 and MIPI DSI2?
Here is what we think on why this has happened…
In a nutshell, it was driven by the broader and higher end user impact of JEDEC UFS as compared to MIPI CSI3 and MIPI DSI2.
1. Greater end user impact: As mobile storage, JEDEC UFS has higher end user impact as it enhances user experience due to the following:
- Higher performance, efficiency & responsiveness - Leading to Instant ON, Multi-Tasking, Fast app loading and swapping
- Low Power – Longer Battery life even with larger screens and multi-tasking
- Security and Reliability – Enterprise application support and Secure Mobile shopping
- Small and Scalable – Thinner and lighter devices
2. Easier technological integration: Along with end user impact, what seems to have enabled quicker adoption is ease of technology development and integration into products due to the following:
- Software compatibility with the wide spread SCSI framework - UFS 2.0 Specification follows the SCSI programming model enabling software reuse
- Simpler Host design due to the well-defined UFS Host controller interface (UFSHCI) specification
Apart from these UFS 2.0 requires only single UniPro Transport layer CPort and does not use the built in end-to-end flow control capabilities of UniPro. It does not require the low latency TC1 support or Pre-emption. This leads to simplification of the MIPI UniPro controller design as well.
3. Better utilization of bandwidth: While MIPI CSI3 and DSI2 utilize significant one-way bandwidth, JEDEC UFS is able to fully utilize the duplex bandwidth provided by the MIPI UniPro transport.