Former rivals offer new flash card spec for consumer apps

Former rivals offer new flash card spec for consumer apps
TOKYO -- Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and SanDisk Corp. have created a new flash memory storage card specification that the companies billed as an improvement on the existing MultiMediaCard format. The companies hope to build a wide base of OEM and second-sourcing support for the card for a future device that can easily record and swap data, such as compressed music or movies.

The Secure Digital (SD) card is a knockoff of the MultiMediaCard format created by SanDisk and Siemens, which is used mainly as a removable storage vehicle for cellular phones and has garnered more than 60 design wins. The three founding companies of the SD format said OEMs will be able to build devices and appliances compatible with both formats.

SD is billed as an improvement over the MultiMediaCard in several areas. Seven of the SD card's nine pins are the same as the MultiMediaCard's, but it has four I/O pins vs. the MuliMediaCard's one. This will initially enable read/write speeds of 2 Megabytes/second, and eventually 10 Mbytes/s, said Dan Auclair, senior vice president of business development and licensing for SanDisk Corp. (Sunnyvale, Calif.)

More importantly, SD cards will include proprietary security functions in both hardware and software, a feature officials here said is necessary for persuading the music industry and others to make their content accessible over the Internet. "They have to look at the Internet not as an enemy but as an opportunity," said Eli Harari, president and chief executive officer of SanDisk.

The companies declined to elaborate on the security features, though they said it will comply with all three levels of the Secure Digital Music Initiative security requirements.

The card will also allow companies to stack flash memory devices in order to provide enough memory to store full-length movies and videos in the future as the density of the chips increases.

"In the next five years, rapid developments in flash memory will bring the cost target to $10 for one hour of music recording," Harari said.Other features of the SD card include a mechanical write-protect switch so that consumers don't accidentally overwrite data, and improvements in electrostatic discharge tolerance provided by a new casing.

The 24 x 32 x 2.1-mm card will be available in 32- and 64-Mbyte densities, which translates into about 7 hours of voice messages and more than 1 hour of MP3 music, respectively. The companies plan to begin sampling the SD card in the first quarter of 2000, and expect to begin volume shipments the following quarter.

Matsushita, for its part, said it plans to employ the SD card in a wide range of consumer devices and appliances, starting with a music player. The strategy is similar to that of Sony Corp., which is planning to use its own Memory Stick flash card in its products. Both Sony and companies from the SD camp are now trying to rally the consumer-electronics industry to support their respective card formats.

SD proponents said their format can employ any flavor of flash memory.

Toshiba plans to use 256-Mbit NAND devices for the cards, while SandDisk plans to stuff the cards with its proprietary NOR devices that can store 2 bits of information per cell.

Toshiba will continue to support its customers and develop upgrades to existing SmartMedia cards using NAND flash, as will SanDisk for its CompactFlash and MultiMediaCard, the companies said.

The two companies had been battling for dominance in the flash card market for several years, but have become allies with the new agreement. In fact, SanDisk has even started selling SmartMedia cards in the U.S. and Europe, a decision which was made in response to the growing scarcity of flash for devices such as MP3 players. "Flash supply is very tight for everybody," Harari said.