Taiwan's miCard chosen as global memory card standard
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(InfoWorld) - A Taiwanese research institute has produced a new global memory card standard, the miCard (Multiple Interface card) designed to work in smaller consumer gadgets such as digital cameras, mobile phones, as well as any device with a USB (Universal Serial Bus) plug, which are common on PCs. The purpose of the card is to make transferring pictures, songs, and other data between gadgets and PCs easier. The card won the stamp of approval from the MultiMedia Card Association (MMCA) on Thursday, and is expected to be available globally starting from the third quarter. Users will not only benefit from the versatility of the card, but also its speed. The miCard will transfer data at 480Mbps, and throughput will improve over time. The miCards due out in the third quarter will be able to store 8GB of information, but the maximum capacity is expected to top out around 2,048GB. The compatibility with both USB and MMC slots means most users won't need separate card readers anymore. MMC cards fit most consumer electronics, while USB connections are built into a wide range of IT hardware, including laptops, desktops, printers and home entertainment gear. So far, 12 Taiwanese companies have signed on to manufacture the miCard, according to its inventor, the Industrial Technology Research Institute. Officials expect local companies to save $40 million in licensing fees thanks to the card, in addition to profiting from sales. Taiwanese companies will not have to pay royalties to make miCards or related technology. The companies already committed to making miCards include A-Data Technology, Asustek Computer, BenQ, Carry Computer Eng. Co., C-One Technology, DBTel, Power Digital Card Co.,Â and RiCHIP. The specifications for the cards will be made available in June.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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InfoWorld - A Taiwanese research institute has produced a new global memory card standard, the miCard (Multiple Interface card) designed to work in smaller consumer gadgets such as digital cameras, mobile phones, as well as any device with a USB (Universal Serial Bus) plug, which are common on PCs.
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By John Markoff  Scientists at IBM and two partner companies have developed a promising material that they believe will lead to a new kind of computer memory chip able to meet the growing appetite for storing digital music, pictures and video.
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Seven of the world&#39;s top mobile phone technology companies are backing the development of a new flash memory standard to be used in mobile phones, digital cameras and other consumer electronics devices.
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SanDisk Corp , the  world's largest maker of data-storage memory chips, reported  third-quarter results that beat estimates as it boosted sales  outside the United States and sold more chips to mobile-phone  makers.
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SanDisk plans to add MP3 players to its product mix in 2005, with the goal of capturing 20% of the Taiwan market, according to the companyâs Taiwan general sales agent Princeton Technology C&amp;C.
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CARLSBAD, Calif., March 9  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Patriot Scientific Corporation  (BULLETIN BOARD: PTSC)  confirmed today that SanDisk, the world's largest supplier of flash storage card products, has purchased a Moore Microprocessor Patent(TM) (MMP) Portfolio license.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan  - A Taiwan government committee on  Monday gave the green light to the island's top two memory chip  makers, Powerchip  and ProMOS , to set up  plants in China, local media reported.
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Sandisk increased capacities and bandwidths of its CompactFlash product line. The cards are now available with up to eight GByte of space and twice the data transfer speed of the previous generation.
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(InfoWorld) - Smartphone users will be able to watch broadband television and snap high-resolution photos on their handsets in 2007 thanks to new processor and memory chips launched at theÂ 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona on Monday. Together with dropping prices, these chips will help spread smartphones from high-end business users to a larger mass-market audience, according to hardware component manufacturers attending the 3GSM show. Camera phones will get a boost in power by using high-resolution image sensors from Micron Technology. The company's new MT9-series sensors use a 1.75-micron pixel design in resolutions of up to 5 megapixels. The top-shelf version, MT9P012, captures video at 60 frames per second at 720p resolution or 30 fps at 1080p and will be ready for sampling in the second quarter of 2007 with mass production by the middle of the year. Likewise, OmniVision Technologies announced a 5.17-megapixel camera module for mobile handsets using the OV5623 CameraChip sensor. That sensor will help high-resolution camerasÂ enter the mainstream mobile handset market, the company said. To store those large photo files, SanDisk announced it had developed a high-capacity version of its iNAND embedded flash drive, capable of holding up to 8GB of data. The new drives are now compliant with JEDEC (joint electron device engineering council) standards, allowing phone vendors to use them in designs that demand enough storage for mobile TV, multimedia downloading, digital audio players, gaming, and GPS. Also supporting mobile television, Qualcomm said that its UBM (Universal Broadcast Modem) chip would ship ahead of schedule, delivering mobile TV capability to mass-market handsets. A single UBM chip contains three technology standards, including FLO technology, digital video broadcasting for handhelds, and integrated service digital broadcasting-terrestrial. Qualcomm also said it would boost mobile broadband by the end of 2007 by launching the Mobile Data Modem 8200, a chipset supporting the next generation of WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access). A smartphone using that chip could support mobile Internet browsing, real-time location services, and multimedia sharing, the company said. To support these capabilities without driving up retail prices, vendors say they need to increase the market size, so another feature of many chips launched at 3GSM was low cost. Broadcom launched its EDGE processor, integrating a radio frequency transceiver, baseband functions, and multimedia connectivity support on a single chip. That design lets phone vendors create slimmer designs, reduce power consumption, and control costs, Broadcom said. Likewise, Qualcomm said its Mobile Station Modem (MSM) 7225 chipset would allow vendors to sell broadband-capable smartphones for less than $200. The chipset uses a dual-processor architecture for high-speed downlink packet access. The company will ship samples in the third quarter of 2007 and expects vendors to bring it to market by the first quarter of 2008. Microsoft said it had another way to open up larger markets for smartphones, adding desktop-quality features to handsets, such as VoIP calls and faster e-mail traffic with higher-quality graphics. Microsoft launchedÂ Windows Mobile 6, its latest OS for mobile handsets, and said it expected a crop of smartphones using the OS to reach market in March or April. Marvell Technology Group pledged to help that migration by announcing it would support the new OS on its PXA300-series processors. Those chips were formerly known as "Monahans" until Marvell bought the division from Intel in 2006. Â
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Among the new offerings from Toshiba is a 4GB CompactFlash card for use in MP3 players and digital camcorders.
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SanDisk(R) Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK), the world's largest supplier of flash storage card products, announced the appointment of Juha Raisanen as senior vice president.
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Sandisk this week announced the addition of new, higher capacity memory cards for mobile phones. The miniSD and RS-MMC card formats will now be offered in capacities as large as 512MB starting in November.
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A new type of memory could soon be available to device makers.
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Nokia Adopts SD Card Tech into Storage Portfolio TechNewsWorld
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South Koreaâs Samsung Electronics has developed the worldâs fastest computer memory chip for graphics applications. Samsung said the 512-megabit graphics double-data-rate (GDDR) memory chip is the most
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(InfoWorld) - The head of Japanese memory chip maker Elpida Memory held talks with Taiwanese officials last week about incentives for building a chip factory on the island. Yukio Sakamoto, Elpida's chief executive officer met with the company's foundry partner in Taiwan, Powerchip Semiconductor, as part of his visit to the island, but Elpida says it has made no decisions yet, a spokeswoman for the company said Tuesday. Elpida is considering an investment in either China, Japan, Singapore, or Taiwan, and could work with a partner in a joint venture or go it alone, said Tomoko Kobayashi a spokeswoman at Elpida. Powerchip declined to comment. Such a deal would be huge for the winning location, because modern DRAM (dynamic RAM) factories cost around $3 billion and employ thousands of workers. China and Taiwan both have advantages because Elpida already works with partners in both places, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. of Shanghai and Powerchip. Singapore would also rate highly since it's been labeled one of the best locations in the world for a chip plant investment due to its tax breaks and other incentives. Japan would have home field advantage. The DRAM industry is also ripe for new factories. Most companies in the business have invested in non-DRAM production lines in recent years, mainly NAND flash memory, popular in digital cameras, mobile phones, and iPods. But DRAM prices have surged recently due to strong PC sales, and prices are expected to remain strong over the next several months onÂ anticipated PC demandÂ from the launch of Microsoft Windows Vista. In fact, the spot price of the most popular chips, DDR2 (double data rate, second generation) chips, hasÂ surged 15 percentÂ over the past three days, according to DRAMeXchange Technology Inc., an online clearinghouse for the chips.