Samsung secures global recognition for environmental sustainability of its semiconductor offerings

Samsung Electronics announced that its 512-gigabyte (GB) embedded Universal Flash Storage (eUFS) 3.0 will be awarded Carbon Footprint and Water Footprint Certifications from UK-based Carbon Trust. 

Samsung’s 512GB eUFS 3.0 is initial mobile memory in the industry to be recognized by an international certifying organization, which was made possible through the company’s extensive efforts to reduce carbon and water footprints.

The Carbon Trust is a globally accredited non-profit certification body established by the British government to accelerate the move to a sustainable, low-carbon economy. Each certification by the Carbon Trust was made after a thorough assessment of the environmental impact of carbon emissions and water usage before and throughout the production cycle, based on international standards.

Based on the company’s fifth-generation (90+ layers) V-NAND, Samsung’s 512GB eUFS 3.0 provides optimal speed, power efficiency and productivity to deliver twice the capacity and 2.1 times the sequential speed of its fourth generation (64 layers) V-NAND-based 256GB eUFS 2.1, while requiring 30 percent less operating voltage. 

Samsung’s 512GB eUFS 3.0 stacks eight of the company’s fifth-generation 512-gigabit (Gb) V-NAND die and integrates a high-performance controller. At 2,100 megabytes-per-second (MB/s), the new eUFS doubles the sequential read rate of Samsung’s latest eUFS memory (eUFS 2.1) which was announced in January this year. 

The offering’s blazing read speed is four times faster than that of a SATA solid state drive (SSDs) and 20 times faster than a typical microSD card, allowing premium smartphones to transfer a full HD movie to a PC in about three seconds. In addition, the sequential write speed also has been improved by 50 percent to 410MB/s, which is equivalent to that of a SATA SSD.

Additionally, Samsung’s fifth-generation V-NAND utilizes a unique etching technology that pierces more than 90 cell layers in a single precise step. This allows the chip to have nearly 1.5 times more stacked layers than the previous generation and accommodate a 25-percent reduction in chip size. Such innovations help to minimize the overall increase in carbon and water footprints for each V-NAND cell layer.

Samsung is also being awarded Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) labels for its ‘1-terabyte (TB) eUFS 2.1’ and its ‘fifth-generation 512-gigabit (Gb) V-NAND’ by the Korean Ministry of Environment.

Samsung plans to actively expand the adoption of its highly sustainable, high-capacity premium memory solutions into many more flagship smartphones and further strengthen global partnerships for its next-generation memory technologies.

“We are extremely pleased that our cutting-edge memory technologies not only demonstrate our capability to overcome more challenging process complexities, but also are recognized for their environmental sustainability,” said Chanhoon Park, executive vice president and head of Giheung Hwaseong Pyeongtaek Complex at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung will continue to create memory solutions that provide the highest levels of speed, capacity and power efficiency at extremely small geometries for end-users worldwide.”

Toshiba introduces its initial electronic fuse, eFuse, which can be used time and again

Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage launched the “TCKE8xx series,” its initial eFuse ICs, a lineup of six products that support various functions needed for circuit protection in power supply lines. Shipments of two products in the lineup start Tuesday.

The most remarkable feature of the eFuse ICs is that they can be used repeatedly. Conventional physical fuses—glass tube fuses and chip fuses—protect power line circuits by physically shutting them down when they are in an over-current state, and are needed to be replaced once broken. eFuse IC products use their own circuitry to shut power lines down when an abnormality occurs, and can be reset and reused.

Another advantage is that eFuse ICs eliminate complex circuit design and a number of components, realizing much simpler circuit designs with fewer components and a smaller area than a protection function secured with discrete parts.

The new TCKE8xx Series realizes highly robust circuit protection by raising over-current detection accuracy to a level beyond that of physical fuses. 

Since the eFuse ICs also have current clamp and voltage clamp to protect against over-current and over-voltage, they can protect circuits and maintain power supply by clamping voltage and current at specified values, even when excess over-current or over-voltage is applied. Their over-temperature and short-circuit protection functions protect circuits by instantly shutting off in the event of extreme overheating, or unexpected short circuiting.

The combination of these characteristics allow the products to help protect electronic equipment such as servers and laptop PCs, which have been required to handle increasingly higher withstand voltages and currents in recent years. As Toshiba intends to obtain IEC 62368-1 certification, the international safety standard for high level safety, they will also simplify the certification tests customers’ devices are required to undergo.