Technical Requirements for Automotive Storage
The automotive environment imposes far stricter requirements on storage devices than consumer electronics: an operating temperature range of -40°C to +105°C (AEC-Q100 Grade 2/3); a service life of 15 years or more, corresponding to tens of thousands of thermal cycles and hundreds of thousands of powered-on hours; ISO 26262 functional safety levels of ASIL-B/D; and data retention of at least 10 years even in high-temperature environments.
Moreover, as OTA (over-the-air) updates become widespread, automotive storage must also support security features such as Secure Boot, Anti-Rollback, and Write Protection.
eMMC 5.1: The Mature Choice for Infotainment
With its mature ecosystem, low cost, and sufficient performance (400MB/s sequential read, 200MB/s sequential write), eMMC 5.1 remains the mainstream choice for in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), instrument clusters, and T-Box applications. Capacities typically range from 16GB to 256GB, covering map data, multimedia content, and system software.
Automotive-grade eMMC products must pass AEC-Q100 qualification and support vehicle-specific features such as Enhanced Partition and RPMB (Replay Protected Memory Block).
UFS 3.1/4.0: Performance for Autonomous Driving
ADAS and autonomous driving domain controllers demand far more from storage than traditional IVI systems: massive sensor streams from multiple cameras, lidar, and millimeter-wave radar require high-speed writes; loading AI inference models requires high-bandwidth sequential reads; and real-time decision-making demands extremely low access latency.
UFS 3.1 (2.1GB/s sequential read) and UFS 4.0 (4.2GB/s sequential read), with their full-duplex architecture, multi-queue command handling, and low latency, are an excellent match for autonomous driving storage needs. Capacities range from 128GB to 1TB, supporting data recording and playback for future L3/L4 autonomy.
Reliability Validation and Selection Advice
Reliability validation for automotive storage includes high-temperature/high-humidity storage testing (85°C/85%RH for 1,000 hours), thermal cycling (-40°C to +125°C, 1,000 cycles), and vibration and mechanical shock testing. We recommend that customers define the test plan jointly with their storage supplier at the selection stage to ensure products meet vehicle-level reliability requirements.
JH Semiconductor offers full lines of automotive-grade eMMC and UFS products and supports customers through the entire process, from selection and evaluation to reliability validation.