Technology is changing at a rapid pace, whether it is related to mobiles, servers, memory devices, etc. There is an increased level of importance given to the performance & computation power involved with the components used in those devices. As per a report by eMarketer, close to 491 million people in India would own a smartphone by the end of 2022. Smartphones that are priced within the sub 20K range also come loaded with AI-enabled features, excellent performance, varied camera setup, and more to capture the best shots.
Whether it is a hand-held device like a mobile phone or an enterprise device/technology like a server [cloud-based or local], performance is always given a top priority. However, achieving top-notch performance might come at the risk of higher power consumption and this factor becomes more critical in battery-powered devices. Technology companies are tirelessly working on improving the storage memory since faster read-write speeds would equate to better performance. HDD [Hard Disk Drive] is slowly being replaced with SSD [Solid State Drive] in laptops, tablets, and other device categories where there is frequent R/W access. Solid state addresses the I/O [Input/Output] bottlenecks for companies of all sizes. Mobile phone manufacturers are slowly switching from traditional eMMC [Embedded Multimedia Card] to UFS [Universal Flash Storage] since UFS offers more benefits over eMMC. When it comes to storage, Western Digital [WD] is one company that has a wide product portfolio for end-consumers, mobile manufacturers, as well as enterprises.
Today, about 45% of world’s data is stored on Western Digital devices. In India alone, there are about 4 lakh retail outlets which sell WD and SanDisk products. WD is a 20 billion dollar company which came together over a series of M&A that has taken place since the last 5~6 years. We recently had an opportunity to interact with Dr. Siva Sivaram, Executive Vice-President of Western Digital during his brief visit to India. The discussion revolved around the changing technology trends in storage, WD in India, etc. Below are some of the excerpts from the interaction that we had with Dr. Siva Sivaram.
Can you give some top-level insights about Western Digital ?
First & foremost, we think of ourselves as a data infrastructure company. All the major mobile players use storage by WD, be it eMMC or UFS. As far as the company positioning is concerned, WD is uniquely positioned to deliver the possibilities of data today and well into the future. The company has the broadest and deepest portfolio of HDD & Flash-based solutions. It has consistently delivered breakthrough technology innovations in the areas of 64- layer 3D NAND, 96-layer 3D NAND, Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording [MAMR]. MAMR will enable a new class of ultra-high capacity enterprise HDDs designed to meet the future demands of Big Data.
WD is committed to open compute architectures and RISC-V. RISC-V will accelerate the development of data-centric devices and systems for Big Data, Fast Data & general-purpose applications. As far as India is concerned, it is an important & strategic country for WD since there is a growing talent pool and there is tremendous growth for WD & SanDisk products in India.
A lot of phone manufacturers are shifting from eMMC to UFS. Is UFS going to replace eMMC completely or will there be a gradual decline of eMMC?
The forward speculation on standards conversion is a hazardous game. In the enterprise segment, we talked about Serial Advanced Technology Attachment [SATA] fading for a long time, and it did not go away. We talked about SAAS going away and it is still running around strong. We talked about PCI adoption, which was going to happen so quickly. It did happen dramatically, it was much later than we expected it to happen.
We have these three tiers that we are talking about, MCPs, eMMC, & the latest entrant UFS. We are all betting that UFS is going to happen. But I cannot tell you how it’s going to happen, though it might take a few years before eMMC completely fazes out. I don’t think PCI is going to happen but UFS is surely going to happen.
Do you foresee mid-segment manufacturers moving to UFS ?
It will happen, but not anytime soon. We do expect that given the benchmark set by Apple & Samsung, given the amount of memory that needs to go into overtime, the MCP market will go down, the eMMC market will split. More high-end devices will have UFS and slowly the mid-segment devices will start to taper down.
With the advent of 5G, what type of products can we expect from WD ?
I don’t truly believe 5G volume is happening anytime this year. The mobile market, in general, will have to go through new product migration cycle. 5G will definitely have a huge impact on automotive products, surveillance, AI, smart cities, etc. There’s a lot of growth everywhere.
We thank Dr. Siva for his time and sharing the insights with our readers. If you have any questions for WD team, please leave them in the comments section…