Memory card
A memory card is an electronic data
storage device used for storing digital
information, typically using flash
memory. These are commonly used in
digital portable electronic devices. They
allow adding memory to such devices
using a card in a socket instead of a
protruding USB flash drives.
Miniaturization is evident in memory card creation;
over time, the physical card sizes have become
smaller
Memory card in a digital SLR camera
History
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. In
1992, SanDisk introduced FlashDisk, a
PCMCIA card and one of the first
memory cards that did not require
battery power to retain its contents.[6]
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;[7] this led to the development of
miniaturized rotating magnetic disk
memory devices such as the Microdrive,
PocketZip and Dataplay. All three
concepts became obsolete once flash
memory prices became lower and their
capacities became higher by 2006.[6]
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.[8] Effectively the format war
has turned in SD-Card's favor.[9][10][11]
Data table of selected
memory card formats
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 Type A CFA 20 × 28 × 2.8 Unknown
CFexpress Type B CFX 38.5 × 29.8 × 3.8 Unknown
CFexpress Type C ? 54 × 74 × 4.8 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
Nintendo Switch NS 31 × 21 × 3 ?
P2 card P2 85.6 × 54 × 3.3 No
PS Vita PSV ? ?
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
Name Abbreviation Form factor (mm) DRM
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
Secure Digital card (SD)
MiniSD Card with an SD card adapter
Memory Stick
CompactFlash (CF-I)
MultiMediaCard (MMC)
SmartMedia
xD-Picture Card
NM card (A proprietary memory card
format created by Huawei) Electronic
contacts compared to nano-sim card to the
same scale.
Overview of all memory
card types
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.[12]
Nexflash Winbond Serial Flash Module
(SFM) cards, size range 1 MB, 2 MB
and 4 MB.
Comparison
Standard SD UFS Card CFast XQD CFexpre
Version 3.0 4.0 6.0 7.0[13] 8.0 1.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 1.0 ?
2010 2011 2017 2018 2020 2016 2008 2012 2011 2014 2017
Launched ? ?
Q2 Q1 Q1 Q2 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2
PCIe PCIe PCIe PCIe PCIe PC
UHS- UHS- UHS- UFS UFS SATA- SATA-
Bus 3.0 4.0 2.0 2.0 3.0 3.0
I II III 2.0 3.0 300 600
x1 x2 x1 x2 x2 x8
Speed
104 156 624 985 3938 600 1200 300 600 500 1000 1970 78
(full-
MB/s MB/s MB/s MB/s MB/s MB/s MB/s MB/s MB/s MB/s MB/s MB/s M
duplex)
Video game consoles
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.[14][15] 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 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.
Neo Geo 2KiB memory card
PlayStation 128 KiB memory card
PlayStation 2 8 MiB memory card
GameCube 512 KiB memory card
Xbox 360 memory card
See also
Wikimedia Commons has media
related to Memory card.
Comparison of memory cards
Hot swapping
Memory card reader
References
1. Micheloni, Rino; Crippa, Luca; Marelli,
Alessia (2010). Inside NAND Flash
Memories ([Link]
ks?id=vaq11vKwo_kC&pg=PA2) . Springer
Science & Business Media. p. 2.
ISBN 9789048194315.
2. Fulford, Benjamin (24 June 2002).
"Unsung hero" ([Link]
lobal/2002/0624/[Link]) . Forbes.
Archived ([Link]
080303205125/[Link]
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original on 3 March 2008. Retrieved
18 March 2008.
3. US 4531203 ([Link]
[Link]/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=US4531
203) Fujio Masuoka
4. "1987: Toshiba Launches NAND Flash" (ht
tps://[Link]/storage/1987-tosh
iba-launches-nand-flash) . eWeek. April
11, 2012. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
5. "1971: Reusable semiconductor ROM
introduced" ([Link]
[Link]/storageengine/reusable-semicondu
ctor-rom-introduced/) . Computer History
Museum. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
6. "25 Years of CompactFlash: A Look Back
at the Pioneering Format" ([Link]
[Link]/news/25-years-of-compactflas
h-a-look-back-at-the-pioneering-format) .
PCMAG.
7. "[Link] - DataPlay Shows
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8. Grunin, Lori (2010-01-06). "Sony does SD;
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CES — CNET Blogs" ([Link]
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Retrieved 2013-01-07.
9. "Format-Krieg entschieden: SD-Card setzt
sich durch" ([Link]
09-113820/[Link]
mat-Krieg-entschieden-SD-Card-setzt-sich
-durch_40751686.html) ("format-war
resolved: SD-card prevails"), Chip-online,
14. January 2010
10. "Camera trends come into focus for 2010"
([Link]
1) , 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 ..."
11. "FEATURE: Playing Your Cards Right at
Retail" ([Link]
NewsHeadlines/FEATURE:PlayingYourCar
[Link]) Archived ([Link]
[Link]/web/20130617153237/htt
p://[Link]/LatestNewsHea
dlines/FEATURE:PlayingYourCardsRightat
[Link]) 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,' ..."
12. "SanDisk and Sony announce SxS
memory card: Digital Photography
Review" ([Link]
0704/[Link]
p) . [Link]. Retrieved 2013-01-07.
13. Pinto, Yosi. "SD + PCIe/NVMe card New
Innovations in SD Cards Lead the Way to
Mobile Everything" ([Link]
[Link]/English/Collaterals/Pro
ceedings/2017/20170809_S202C_Pinto.p
df) (PDF). Flash Memory Summit.
14. "The Official NEO-GEO Memory Card FAQ
by Billy Pitt" ([Link]
m/[Link]) .
[Link]. Retrieved
2017-02-10.
15. "This Fall Everything Turns To Gold With
Neo-Geo: The Player's Gold Card Keeps
Them Coming Back For More" ([Link]
[Link]/details/re-play-volume-16-issue-n
o.-2-november-1990-600dpi/RePlay%20-%
20Volume%2016%2C%20Issue%20No.%2
02%20-%20November%201990/page/26/
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November 1990. pp. 26–7.
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"[Link]
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