Sandisk Memory Card For Canon Camera

Miniaturization is evident in memory card creation; over time, the physical card sizes have become smaller

Memory card in a digital SLR camera

Small, thin and removable digital data storage device, often designed to be semi-permanently installed inside a larger device

A memory card or memory cartridge is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in portable electronic devices, such as digital cameras, mobile phones, laptop computers, tablets, PDAs, portable media players, video game consoles, synthesizers, electronic keyboards and digital pianos, and allow adding memory to such devices without compromising ergonomy, as the card is usually contained within the device rather than protruding like USB flash drives.

History [edit]

The basis for memory card technology is flash memory.^[1] It was invented by Fujio Masuoka at Toshiba in 1980^[2] ^[3] and commercialized by Toshiba in 1987.^[4] ^[5]

PC Cards (PCMCIA) were the first commercial memory card formats (type I cards) to come out, but are now mainly used in industrial applications and to connect I/O devices such as modems. Since 1994, a number of memory card formats smaller than the PC Card arrived. The first one was CompactFlash and later SmartMedia and Miniature Card. 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 2001, SM alone captured 50% of the digital camera market and CF had captured the professional digital camera market. 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 and embedded fields, even the venerable PC card (PCMCIA) memory cards still manage to maintain a niche, while in mobile phones and PDAs, the memory card has become smaller.

Initially memory cards were expensive, costing US$3 per megabyte of capacity in 2001;^[6] this led to the development of the Microdrive, PocketZip and Dataplay. All three concepts became obsolete once flash memory prices became lower and capacities became higher.

Since 2010, new products of Sony (previously only using Memory Stick) and Olympus (previously only using XD-Card) have been offered with an additional SD-Card slot.^[7] Effectively the format war has turned in SD-Card's favor.^[8] ^[9] ^[10]

Data table of selected memory card formats [edit]

Name	Abbreviation	Form factor (mm)	DRM
PC Card	PCMCIA	85.6 × 54 × 3.3	No
CompactFlash I	CF-I	43 × 36 × 3.3	No
CompactFlash II	CF-II	43 × 36 × 5.5	No
CFexpress	CFX	38.5 × 29.8 × 3.8	Unknown
SmartMedia	SM/ SMC	45 × 37 × 0.76	ID
Memory Stick	MS	50.0 × 21.5 × 2.8	MagicGate
Memory Stick Duo	MSD	31.0 × 20.0 × 1.6	MagicGate
Memory Stick Pro Duo	MSPD	31.0 × 20.0 × 1.6	MagicGate
Memory Stick Pro-HG Duo	MSPDX	31.0 × 20.0 × 1.6	MagicGate
Memory Stick Micro M2	M2	15.0 × 12.5 × 1.2	MagicGate
Miniature Card	?	37 × 45 × 3.5	No
Multimedia Card	MMC	32 × 24 × 1.5	No
Reduced Size Multimedia Card	RS-MMC	16 × 24 × 1.5	No
MMCmicro Card	MMCmicro	12 × 14 × 1.1	No
P2 card	P2	85.6 × 54 × 3.3	No
SD card	SD	32 × 24 × 2.1	CPRM
SxS	SxS	75 × 34 × 5	No
Universal Flash Storage	UFS	?	Unknown
microSD card	microSD	15 × 11 × 0.7	CPRM
xD-Picture Card	xD	20 × 25 × 1.7	No
Intelligent Stick	iStick	24 × 18 × 2.8	No
Serial Flash Module	SFM	45 × 15	No
µ card	µcard	32 × 24 × 1	Unknown
NT Card	NT NT+	44 × 24 × 2.5	No
XQD card	XQD	38.5 × 29.8 × 3.8	Unknown
Nano Memory card	NM Card	12.3 × 8.8 × 0.7	Unknown

NM card (A proprietary memory card format created by Huawei) Electronic contacts compared to nano-sim card of equal dimensions.

Overview of all memory card types [edit]

PCMCIA ATA Type I 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
CFexpress
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, TF)
- SDHC
- WiFi SD Cards (SD Card With WiFi Card Built in) Powered by Device. (Eye-Fi, WiFi SD, Flash Air)
Nano Memory (NM) card
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) (uses USB)
FISH Universal Transportable Memory Card Standard (uses USB)
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.^[11]
Nexflash Winbond Serial Flash Module (SFM) cards, size range 1 MB, 2 MB and 4 MB.

Comparison [edit]

Standard	SD					UFS Card		CFast		XQD		CFexpress
Version	3.0	4.0	6.0	7.0^[12]	8.0	1.0	2.0	1.0	2.0	1.0	2.0	1.0	?
Launched	2010 Q2	2011 Q1	2017 Q1	2018 Q2	2020 Q1	2016 Q2	?	2008 Q3	2012 Q3	2011 Q4	2014 Q1	2017 Q2	?
Bus	UHS-I	UHS-II	UHS-III	PCIe 3.0 x1	PCIe 4.0 x2	UFS 2.0	UFS 3.0	SATA-300	SATA-600	PCIe 2.0 x1	PCIe 2.0 x2	PCIe 3.0 x2	PCIe 3.0 x8
Speed (full-duplex)	104 MB/s	156 MB/s	624 MB/s	985 MB/s	3938 MB/s	600 MB/s	1200 MB/s	300 MB/s	600 MB/s	500 MB/s	1000 MB/s	1970 MB/s	7880 MB/s

Video game consoles [edit]

Many older video game consoles used memory cards to hold saved game data. Cartridge-based systems primarily used battery-backed volatile RAM within each individual cartridge to hold saves for that game. Cartridges without this RAM may have used a password system, or wouldn't save progress at all. The Neo Geo AES, released in 1990 by SNK, was the first video game console able to use a memory card. AES memory cards were also compatible with Neo Geo MVS arcade cabinets, allowing players to migrate saves between home and arcade systems and vice versa.^[13] ^[14] Memory cards became commonplace when home consoles moved to read-only optical discs for storing the game program, beginning with systems such as the TurboGrafx-CD and Sega-CD.

Until the sixth generation of video game consoles, memory cards were based on proprietary formats; later systems have used established industry hardware formats for memory cards, such as FAT32.

Home consoles now commonly use hard disk drive storage for saved games and allow the use of generic USB flash drives or other card formats via a memory card reader to transport game saves and other game information, along with cloud storage saving, though most portable gaming systems still rely on custom memory cartridges to store program data, due to their low power consumption, smaller physical size and reduced mechanical complexity.

References [edit]

^ Micheloni, Rino; Crippa, Luca; Marelli, Alessia (2010). Inside NAND Flash Memories. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 2. ISBN9789048194315.
^ Fulford, Benjamin (24 June 2002). "Unsung hero". Forbes. Archived from the original on 3 March 2008. Retrieved 18 March 2008.
^ US 4531203 Fujio Masuoka
^ "1987: Toshiba Launches NAND Flash". eWeek. April 11, 2012. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
^ "1971: Reusable semiconductor ROM introduced". Computer History Museum . Retrieved 19 June 2019.
^ "PCWorld.com - DataPlay Shows Breakthrough in Storage Media". June 8, 2001. Archived from the original on June 8, 2001.
^ Grunin, Lori (2010-01-06). "Sony does SD; Panasonic intros first SDXC cards | 2010 CES — CNET Blogs". Ces.cnet.com. Archived from the original on 2010-03-24. Retrieved 2013-01-07 .
^ "Format-Krieg entschieden: SD-Card setzt sich durch" ("format-war resolved: SD-card prevails"), Chip-online, 14. January 2010
^ "Camera trends come into focus for 2010", NBC News, 13. January.2010 "As much as the storage-format war cleared up a bit with Sony announcing that it would support SD and SDHC cards ..."
^ "FEATURE: Playing Your Cards Right at Retail" Archived 2013-06-17 at the Wayback Machine, Peter K. Burian, 4. June 2010. "Some industry observers have suggested that this development signals an end to the 'format war,' ..."
^ "SanDisk and Sony announce SxS memory card: Digital Photography Review". Dpreview.com. Retrieved 2013-01-07 .
^ Pinto, Yosi. "SD + PCIe/NVMe card New Innovations in SD Cards Lead the Way to Mobile Everything" (PDF). Flash Memory Summit.
^ "The Official NEO-GEO Memory Card FAQ by Billy Pitt". NeoGeoProtos.com . Retrieved 2017-02-10 .
^ "This Fall Everything Turns To Gold With Neo-Geo: The Player's Gold Card Keeps Them Coming Back For More". RePlay. Vol. 16 no. 2. November 1990. pp. 26–7.