Good to know: What is eMMC?

10.06.2020

Many mobile devices and also some of the spo-comm Mini-PCs use eMMC as a storage medium. What exactly is eMMC and what are the advantages of this memory? We explain this in today’s article.

Where does eMMC come from?

eMMC was developed for use as internal data storage in mobile devices and specified by JEDEC .

The acronym eMMC stands for "embedded Multimedia Card" and is based on the flash memory standard. The basis for eMMC is the MMC memory card, which is also the predecessor of the SD card.

However, eMMC is now being replaced by other technologies, such as Universal Flash Storage (UFS), as these have higher read and write speeds.

Advantages of eMMC

In addition to the actual flash memory, an eMMC package also combines a controller and the contacting in a BGA package. We have already explained what is behind BGA, PGA and LGA in a blog article. By combining the aforementioned components on just one board, eMMC memory is usually more space-saving and also cheaper than regular memory.

Use of eMMC

eMMC memory is mainly used in mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. As eMMC integrates other peripheral devices in a package as described above, it can be addressed directly as a memory. But the ever smaller Mini PCs, such as our TEGRA 2 or BOX N6211, also rely on eMMC.

TEGRA 2

BOX N6211