ATP Industrial/automotive-grade e.MMC Designed to High-performance Data Transfer, Achieving with up to 128 GB Of Memory

e.MMC Primer

Embedded MultiMedia Controller, or e.MMC, is an advanced managed NAND flash storage solution soldered directly to the motherboard. It integrates the following components in the same IC package:

• MMC interface

• NAND flash memory

• NAND flash controller

In contrast to "raw" NAND solutions like typical solid state drives (SSDs) or SSD modules that require an external hardware controller, e.MMC is "managed" NAND – it combines raw NAND and a sophisticated controller in an integrated package so memory management is done internally.

Figure 1. The e.MMC controller handles memory management internally, freeing the host from handling low-level flash operations like wear leveling, bad block management, error management, and other functions. 

The integrated package design offers the following benefits:

• Internal NAND management frees the host from having to perform low-level flash background operations such as wear leveling, bad block management, error correction and other functions.

• Simplified qualification process reduces time-to-market.

• High throughput support for large data transfers deliver the performance required by mobile devices.

• Low power consumption makes the e.MMC a cost-effective solution for space-constrained systems.

• Simplified memory interface design allows e.MMC to be extremely compact and provides support for future flash storage devices. It is smaller than a postage stamp, making it suitable for automotive and industrial applications requiring rugged endurance, reliability and durability in challenging operating environments.

  
  

Figure 2. Size comparison between a postage stamp and an e.MMC card.

Usage

e.MMC is a universal data storage and communication media and is typically used in portable applications. Its small footprint makes it a preferred choice for mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops. Increasingly, e.MMC is also gaining wide acceptance in embedded systems for industrial and automotive applications, such as infotainment systems, aerospace/avionics, Internet of Things (IoT), industrial automation, and other applications.

Latest Standard

JEDEC published the latest version of the e.MMC standard in February 2015. JESD84-B51: Embedded MultiMediaCard (e.MMC), Electrical Standard (5.1), also known as e.MMC v5.1, defines new features and updates. The table below shows a comparison of features available on recent e.MMC versions.

Table 1. Specifications comparison of different e.MMC versions.

*Versions 4.51/5.0/5.1 support all data bus widths (1/4/8 bits) when providing backward compatibility for lower speeds such as those of legacy MMC cards, high-speed SDR and high-speed DDR.

Version Change Highlights

Table 2. e.MMC 5.1 bus speed modes and clock frequencies.

Comparison with Other NAND Flash Storage Products

How is e.MMC different from other NAND flash storage products such as solid state drives (SSD), memory cards and universal flash storage (UFS)? Although storage products all use NAND flash memory chips, they are different in many ways aside from their physical appearance.

Information on this table is based on ATP product specifications. 

Table 3. Key differences of e.MMC from other NAND flash storage products.
*Ultra High Speed bus interface
**UFS availability TBA.

Size Comparison

The figure below shows the different sizes of ATP flash storage products along with the e.MMC.

Figure 4. ATP e.MMC size compared with other ATP NAND flash storage products

ATP industrial/automotive-grade e.MMC comes in a 153-ball Fine Pitch Ball Grid Array (FBGA) and is designed to meet high-performance data transfer, code and data storage requirements as well as automotive applications such as in-vehicle infotainment. Constructed using 3D MLC NAND flash memory, the ATP e.MMC achieves higher densities with up to 128 GB of memory for use as mass storage. 

The ATP e.MMC complies with JEDEC e.MMC standard v5.1 and is backward compatible with other e.MMC versions (v4.41/v4.5/v5.0). It supports features such as power-off notifications, packed commands, cache, boot or replay protected memory block (RPMB) partitions, high priority interrupt (HPI), and hardware (HW) reset.

ATP e.MMC Solutions

Table 4. ATP industrial e.MMC specifications
* 1 GB=1,000,000,000 bytes. Actual user storage may be less.
**Based on internal testing; performance may vary depending upon drive capacity, file attributes, host device, OS and application. Cache On.

e.MMC is a cost-effective, reliable embedded mass storage device that integrates the NAND flash memory, controller and interface in one package. ATP's e.MMC solutions offer reliable storage for applications requiring high performance and endurance as well as low power consumption.