Silicon Motion Technology has announced that its flagship SM2703 SD controller now supports random read/write performance of up to 2000/800 IOPS to meet the A1 (Application Performance Class 1) requirements from the latest SD 5.1 specifications.

Silicon Motion indicated that by meeting the A1 performance standard and offering compatibility with the Android 7.0/6.0 Adoptable Storage platform, SM2703-based SD cards allow users to expand the internal storage of Android smartphones via a larger unified, high-performance embedded memory.

The SM2703 delivers 4K random read/write speeds of up to 2000/800 IOPS in multi-die configurations and 2000/650 IOPS on a single TLC die, which exceed the SD 5.1 A1 performance requirements (random read/write speeds of up to 1500/500 IOPS), the company claimed.

In addition, the SM2703's full compliance with SD 5.1 and compatibility with the latest version of Android's Adoptable Storage platform enables the integration of SD card and internal storage as a single storage platform for user applications, data and media, the company said.

"Android Smartphone shipments accounted for more than 85% of the worldwide market share, and 70% to 80% of these phones have microSD slots," said Nelson Duann, senior VP of product marketing at Silicon Motion. "We have been working with the SD Association and our ecosystem partners in bringing this latest specification to market. With the SM2703 controller now supporting SD 5.1, our partners can rapidly bring to market a new generation of SD cards to enable a much better user experience and extend the usability of the Android smartphones."