US
: SanDisk announced a 4-gigabyte (GB)1 miniSD High Capacity (SDHC™)
flash card at the CTIA Wireless Show.
The 4GB SanDisk miniSDHC card will be able to provide the fast speed
and large capacity required to support increasingly popular but storage-intensive
applications such as digital imaging, music and video record/playback
functions as well as mobile television and videogames. The 4GB capacity
can store more than 2,000 high-resolution pictures, more than 1,000
digital songs or up to 8 hours of MPEG 4 video2.
“The 4GB miniSDHC card represents a significant technological
breakthrough and highlights the growing need for large-capacity, high-speed
storage for the mobile phone market,” said Yoram Cedar, executive
vice president of handset business and corporate engineering at SanDisk.
“SanDisk is responding to the next-generation demands of cell
phone makers and users, who increasingly see their phone as their
camera, video player, gaming and music devices.”
“The new 4GB miniSD card from SanDisk allows handset manufacturers
and mobile network operators to plan rich media services for their
customers,” said Gerry Purdy, vice president and chief analyst,
Mobile and Wireless, Frost and Sullivan. “Four gigabytes of
memory is the threshold for providing adequate storage to support
music, video, gaming and other exciting applications in the handset.”
SanDisk is now sampling the new 4GB miniSD card to OEMs such as major
phone manufacturers and mobile network operators (MNOs). Retail release
of the card is planned for 2007. Though standard miniSD and miniSDHC
cards look identical in size and shape, only SDHC-compatible products
will be able to accept the new miniSDHC cards. Engineering samples
will be available for evaluation, as mobile phone makers will need
to upgrade the firmware in their handsets so that memory slots can
support the new card. OEM pricing has not been determined yet.
Based on the SD Association 2.0 specification, the new card is a member
of the SDHC family. SDHC is the new designation for any SD or SD-based
card that is larger than 2GB and adheres to the SD 2.00 specification,
a completely new design that is required for cards and hosts to support
4GB to 32GB capacities. The specification was developed by the SD
Association, an industry standards board, which also defined three
speed classes for speed and performance capabilities. These cards
adhere to the SD Speed Class 2 Rating specification which defines
a minimum sustained transfer speed for SDHC cards.
