SD and microSD memory cards-the world’s preferred memory card
San Ramon, California-(BUSINESS WIRE)-January 21, 2020 — The SD Association (SDA) is celebrating its 20th anniversary. When the association was founded 20 years ago, its mission was to revolutionize memory card standards and create a more relaxed life for consumers and businesses around the world. Over the years, SD memory cards have been continuously developed, and their functions have been greatly expanded. They have become the first choice for memory cards. Today, these memory cards play an important role in a variety of devices, which is unimaginable 20 years ago.
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The dependable SD memory card series provides new options for consumers and business users, and with its unprecedented portability, upgradeability and interoperability, it enhances the effectiveness, value and durability of many consumer electronics products. In this mobile era that requires more storage space, bulk SD cards have become the actual storage devices for billions of products. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) statistics, from 2023, companies, machines, industries, consumers, science and other fields will generate 103 ZB of data every year. Whether data comes from smartphones, tablets, laptops, drones, surveillance cameras, or cars, consumers and enterprises need to rely on SD memory cards to protect their music, movies, TV shows, games, and photos. They need to make sure that they can always access these data themselves.
Twenty years ago, the memory card market was in chaos, and was filled with about 6 different types of memory cards. Most of these memory cards are dedicated cards, which are not compatible with each other and cannot guarantee the interoperability between different devices. SD was created to establish technical standards to meet the growing demand for consumer electronic products, and continue to build a strong ecosystem for collaboration and development among all equipment manufacturers. SDA was jointly created by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (now known as Panasonic Corporation), SanDisk Corporation (now owned by Western Digital), and Toshiba Corporation (whose memory division has been spun off into Kioxia Company).
SD Association Chairman Yosi Pinto said, “When the SD Association was established 20 years ago, the three founding companies were really visionary. They realized that a small SD memory card would have a major impact on the way we store digital data in the 21st century. They finally formulated the industry standard for digital media in the next century. The SD specification not only promotes the standardization of memory cards and benefits consumers, but also continues to develop and expand capacity to meet industry needs, which makes SD the most recognized and trusted brand in mobile storage field.. ”
The highlights of SDA’s innovations over the past 20 years include the following (see infographic):
- Created 15 major physical and mechanical specifications, dozens of related publications, related appendices, test guides and application specification.
- Designed specifications for microSD with extremely small size, this product has now become the most popular mainstream memory card trusted by enterprises and consumers.
- Expanded storage capacity with SDHC, SDXC and SDUC specifications, support up to 128 TB storage space.
- Use the latest SD Express specification to increase the reading and writing speed of the memory card from 12 MB/s to 985 MB/s, a speed increase of nearly 100 times .
- Maintain backward compatibility, can be used immediately after insert in, very convenient
- Accumulated more than 1,700 members focused on developing and using SD standards
The first SD card sold 20 years ago can only provide 8 MB of storage capacity. Thanks to tremendous advances in storage technology, today’s SDXC and microSDXC card capacity has reached 1 TB. Compared with the first SD memory card, the capacity has increased by about 125,000 times.
Hiroyuki Sakamoto, President of the SD Association said, “SDA has helped the industry establish a standard through the development of SD technology, thereby introducing commercial and consumer businesses into a strong and sustainable ecosystem. Through the recent SD Express, microSD Express and SDUC standards, SDA has drawn up a blueprint that will benefit all users in the next few years. ”
SDA has an undoubtful professional authority in the standardization of memory cards for consumer and enterprise applications. The association has a complete technical specification development process and testing guidelines, supplemented by compliance activities to test the interoperability and compliance of new products. In addition, its global marketing and media team will regulate and manage the use of its trademarks, logos and symbols, guide users and promote the adoption, development and the use of the SD standard.
SD Association
The SD Association is a global system enterprise group composed of nearly 850 technology companies and is responsible for formulating interoperable SD standards. The Association encourages the development of consumer electronics, wireless communications, digital imaging and networking products that utilize market-leading SD technology. The SD standard is the number one choice for consumers, and with its reliable interoperability and easy-to-use format, it occupies more than 90% of the memory card market shares. Today, smartphones, tablets, drones, IoT devices, high-definition televisions, audio players, in-vehicle systems, computers, digital cameras, and digital video cameras all adopt the interoperable SD standard. For more information about SDA or to join SDA, please visit the association’s website: https://www.sdcard.org.
SD 20th Anniversary (Graphic: Business Wire)
The SD logo is a licensed trademark of SD-3C LLC.
Kevin Schader
SD Association
1.925.275.6670
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