The first and most crucial piece of hardware is, of course, the silicon (chipset) inside the phone. The new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 are part of a new generation of processors that are specifically designed with on-device AI in mind.
But apart from the chips that enable the magic we see on our phones, there are a few other components affecting the speed at which said magic happens. One such component is the storage.
Now, some of you know this very well, others might think that storage only comes in different sizes. However, there is another side to storage, and that is speed. The latest and greatest in phone storage technology was created by Samsung itself, or Samsung Semiconductor to be more precise, dubbed UFS 4.0.
UFS stands for Universal Flash Storage, and version 4.0 is about twice as fast in read and write speeds compared to the previous generation, UFS 3.1. Now, Samsung Semiconductor has revealed its plans for the near future on the social media platform Weixin (via SamMobile).
Samsung’s roadmap to the next Universal Flash Storage (UFS) generations.
The roadmap shows an upgrade called UFS 4.0 4-lane CS, scheduled to come out sometime in 2025, with production set to start in 2024. Samsung explains that UFS 4.0 4-lane memory combines two UFS controllers for increased sequential read speed, which is probably where the “4-lane” part comes from.
This next iteration of UFS 4.0 will be capable of 8GB/s speeds, compared to the 4GB/s of the current UFS 4.0 storage. Samsung states that this upgrade will help with loading times and on-device AI applications, which is where the whole AI push ties in nicely.
What’s beyond the horizon?
Beyond UFS 4.0 4-lane, a little further ahead in time in 2027, Samsung is planning to release the next major step in mobile storage technology, UFS 5.0, said to be capable of 10GB/s speeds. If logic serves, this means we might see the Galaxy S27 rocking that much faster storage.As for what Galaxy phone will be the first to get the UFS 4.0 4-lane storage, it wouldn’t be too farfetched to assume the Galaxy S25 series might be the one to look forward to. Given Samsung’s plans to start production this year, that just might turn out to be the case.