Toshiba Expands Growing Line-Up of Secure Digital Memory Cards With the Introduction of a 128MB Card

IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- To meet the growing consumer demand for greater storage capacity for data, video and audio files, Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc. (TAEC) today announced the introduction of a 128 megabyte (MB) Secure Digital (SD) Memory Card. The new SD Memory Card complements Toshiba Corp.'s (Toshiba) comprehensive line of solid state storage solutions which also include the CompactFlash and SmartMedia form factors, bringing original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers a range of solutions to meet their removable storage requirements.

Designated the SD-M1280, the 128MB SD Memory Card includes two of Toshiba's 512 megabit (Mb) NAND flash memory devices, manufactured using Toshiba's 0.16-micron process technology. Designed for use in wireless and portable communications devices including personal digital assistants (PDAs), cellular phones, handheld PCs, digital still and video cameras, MP3 players, car navigation systems, and electronic books, the 128MB SD Memory Card stores up to four hours of music or 40 minutes of video.

"As the cost-per-bit of NAND flash memory continues to decline, it is becoming the most cost-effective choice for a variety of applications, driving a shift in the market demand from NOR to NAND," said Jackie Traeumer, senior business development manager, Flash Products, at TAEC. "With the introduction of the 128MB SD Memory Card, we are continuing to push the envelope in developing higher density solutions to meet the needs of a broader range of applications requiring greater amounts of secure file storage."

Toshiba's 128MB SD Memory Cards leverage the company's advanced security technology to provide key enhancements over traditional flash cards such as cryptographic security, improved protection of copyrighted data, high data transfer rate for fast copy/download, and high storage capacity.

According to Gartner Dataquest, the ability to store and transfer digital information has become increasingly important over the past couple of years, due to the emergence of digital consumer products in general and of portable electronic equipment in particular. "In 2000, the removable flash card market was worth approximately .3 billion," said Benjamin Thompson, senior analyst, Gartner Dataquest. "Gartner Dataquest views the potential annual revenue for Secure Digital Card sales to be as high as million to billion by 2004, due to the substantial requirement for content protection of recordable and prerecorded media (CPRM and CPPM) in the consumer electronics marketplace."

Samples of Toshiba's SD-M1280 are available now, and priced at each in OEM quantities. Toshiba plans to introduce a 256MB SD Memory Card in the fourth quarter of 2001.