A memory card or flash card is an electronic flash memory data storage device used for storing digital contents. They are commonly used in many electronic devices, including digital cameras, mobile phones, laptop computers, MP3 players, and video game consoles. They are small, re-recordable, and they can retain data without power.
The most common type of memory card in use today is the SD card[1], which comes in capacities of up to 32 Gigabytes. In addition to these and other types of memory cards, there are also non-solid-state memory cards that do not use flash memory, and there are different types of flash memory. Many cards incorporate wear levelling algorithms in their design.
PC Card (PCMCIA) were among first commercial memory card formats (type I cards) to come out in the 1990s, but are now mainly used in industrial applications and to connect I/O devices such as modems. In 1990s, a number of memory card formats smaller than PC Card came out, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, and Miniature Card. In other areas, tiny embedded memory cards (SID) were used in cell phones, game ds. The desire for smaller cards for cell-phones, PDAs, and compact digital cameras drove a trend that left the previous generation of "compact" cards looking big. In digital cameras SmartMedia and CompactFlash had been very successful, in 2001 SM alone captured 50% of the digital camera market and CF had a strangle hold on professional digital cameras. By 2005 however, SD/MMC had nearly taken over SmartMedia's spot, though not to the same level and with stiff competition coming from Memory Stick variants, as well as CompactFlash. In industrial fields, even the venerable PC card (PCMCIA) memory cards still manage to maintain a niche, while in cell-phones and PDAs, the memory card market is highly fragmented.
Contents |
Data table of selected memory card formats
| Name | Acronym | Form factor | DRM |
|---|---|---|---|
| PC Card | PCMCIA | 85.6 × 54 × 3.3 mm | None |
| CompactFlash I | CF-I | 43 × 36 × 3.3 mm | None |
| CompactFlash II | CF-II | 43 × 36 × 5.5 mm | None |
| SmartMedia | SM / SMC | 45 × 37 × 0.76 mm | None |
| Memory Stick | MS | 50.0 × 21.5 × 2.8 mm | MagicGate |
| Memory Stick Duo | MSD | 31.0 × 20.0 × 1.6 mm | MagicGate |
| Memory Stick PRO Duo | MSPD | 31.0 × 20.0 × 1.6 mm | MagicGate |
| Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo | MSPDX | 31.0 × 20.0 × 1.6 mm | MagicGate |
| Memory Stick Micro M2 | M2 | 15.0 × 12.5 × 1.2 mm | MagicGate |
| Miniature Card | 37 x 45 x 3.5 mm | None | |
| Multimedia Card | MMC | 32 × 24 × 1.5 mm | None |
| Reduced Size Multimedia Card | RS-MMC | 16 × 24 × 1.5 mm | None |
| MMCmicro Card | MMCmicro | 12 × 14 × 1.1 mm | None |
| Secure Digital card | SD | 32 × 24 × 2.1 mm | CPRM |
| SxS | SxS | ||
| Universal Flash Storage | UFS | ||
| miniSD card | miniSD | 21.5 × 20 × 1.4 mm | CPRM |
| microSD card | microSD | 15 × 11 × 0.7 mm | CPRM |
| xD-Picture Card | xD | 20 × 25 × 1.7 mm | None |
| Intelligent Stick | iStick | 24 x 18 x 2.8 mm | None |
| Serial Flash Module | SFM | 45 x 15 mm | None |
| µ card | µcard | 32 x 24 x 1 mm | Unknown |
| NT Card | NT NT+ | 44 x 24 x 2.5 mm | None |
 CompactFlash (CF-I) |
 MultiMediaCard (MMC) |
 Secure Digital card (SD) |
|
 xD-Picture Card (xD) |
Overview of all memory card types
- PCMCIA ATA Type I Flash Memory Card (PC Card ATA Type I)
- PCMCIA Type II, Type III cards
- CompactFlash Card (Type I), CompactFlash High-Speed
- CompactFlash Type II, CF+(CF2.0), CF3.0
- Microdrive
- MiniCard (Miniature Card) (max 64 MB (64 MiB))
- SmartMedia Card (SSFDC) (max 128 MB) (3.3 V,5 V)
- xD-Picture Card, xD-Picture Card Type M
- Memory Stick, MagicGate Memory Stick (max 128 MB); Memory Stick Select, MagicGate Memory Stick Select ("Select" means: 2x128 MB with A/B switch)
- SecureMMC
- Secure Digital (SD Card), Secure Digital High-Speed, Secure Digital Plus/Xtra/etc (SD with USB connector)
- miniSD card
- microSD card (aka Transflash, T-Flash)
- SDHC
- MU-Flash (Mu-Card) (Mu-Card Alliance of OMIA)
- C-Flash
- SIM card (Subscriber Identity Module)
- Smart card (ISO/IEC 7810, ISO/IEC 7816 card standards, etc.)
- UFC (USB FlashCard) [1] (uses USB)
- FISH Universal Transportable Memory Card Standard (uses USB)
- Disk memory cards:
- Clik! (PocketZip), (40 MB PocketZip)
- Floppy disk (32MB, LS120 and LS240, 2-inch, 3.5-inch, etc.)
- Intelligent Stick (iStick, a USB-based flash memory card with MMS)
- SxS (S-by-S) memory card, a new memory card specification developed by Sandisk and Sony. SxS complies to the ExpressCard industry standard. [2]
- Nexflash Winbond Serial Flash Module (SFM) cards, size range 1 mb, 2 mb and 4 mb.
Memory cards in video game consoles
Many game consoles have used proprietary solid-state memory cards to store data. In recent years read-only optical discs have replaced these memory cards in most current home console systems. However most portable gaming systems still rely on custom memory cartridges, due to their low power consumption, smaller physical size and reduced mechanical complexity.
The sizes in parenthesis are those of the official, first-party memory cards.
- Microsoft Xbox line:
- Xbox Memory Unit (8 MB)
- Xbox 360 Memory Unit (64 MB, 256 MB, and 512 MB versions)
- Nintendo line:
- Nintendo 64 Controller Pak (256 kbit/32 KB), divided into 123 pages
- Nintendo GameCube Memory Card 59 block (4 Mbit/512 KB), 251 block (16 Mbit/2 MB), and 1019 block (64 Mbit/8 MB) versions
- Wii Nintendo GameCube Memory Card compatible (see above) and Secure Digital card compatible
- Nintendo DSi Secure Digital card compatible
- Sega Dreamcast Visual Memory Unit (VMU) (128 KB divided in 200 blocks)
- Sega Saturn memory unit can hold 20 blocks of save games.
- Sony PlayStation line:
- PlayStation Memory Card (1 Mb/128 KB divided in 15 blocks)
- The PocketStation can act as PlayStation Memory Card
- The PlayStation 2 used 8MB cards for its own content and supported PlayStation Memory Cards for backward compatibility.
- Early models of the PlayStation 3 featured integrated CompactFlash, Secure Digital, and Memory Stick PRO Duo support. External attachments allow the import and export of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 Memory Cards.
- PlayStation Portable uses Memory Stick PRO Duo, while its successor, the PSP Go uses Memory Stick Micro
- GP2X GNU/Linux based portable games console, uses SD/MMC.
- Neo Geo AES, released in 1990 by SNK, was the first video game console able to use a memory card. AES memory cards are also compatible with Neo-Geo MVS arcade cabinets.
See also
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This page was last modified on 18 March 2010 at 00:50.
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