Samsung Press Release 13/12/04

Samsung Electronics Develops Removable, Thumbnail-Sized Memory Card for Mobile Phones

SEOUL, South Korea—(Business Wire)—Dec. 14, 2004 - Samsung announced today that it has developed an extremely small, low-power multimedia memory card (MMC) for mobile phones. The Samsung MMCmicro memory card has been designed to overcome a major hurdle in cell phone design—achieving high performance with a low-power, removable memory card, now smaller than the size of a thumbnail.

With dimensions of only 12x14x1.1mm, Samsung’s new “MMCmicro” device is one-third the size of today’s common reduced-size multimedia cards (RS-MMC). Samsung said that the design of its low-power card makes it easy to incorporate removable memory into progressively smaller mobile phones. Each card can operate on 1.8 or 3.3 volts of power.

Despite its exceptionally small size, the Samsung MMCmicro has proven to be highly reliable in delivering excellent performance through extensive testing. The card can read at 10MB per second and write at 7MB per second; a 128MB version can store about 60 5-megapixel digital photographs or nearly one hour of QVGA-resolution video. Highly durable, the card can be erased and reused at least 100,000 times and offers an operating speed between card and system of 26MB per second. With exceptional storage and performance characteristics, the MMCmicro is designed to be easily removed from the handset and replaced with a new MMCmicro card when users decide to upgrade.

Samsung can stack up to five NAND flash memory devices into each of the new ultra-small memory cards. Initially, they will be sold in 32, 64 and 128 Mbyte sizes.

Research and analysis firm Gartner, Inc. predicts that demand for MMC cards will grow at an average of 61 percent annually through 2007. Samsung is working on standardizing the “MMCmicro” memory card with the Multimedia Card Association (MMCA).

Other Samsung multimedia cards include RS-MMC and MMCmobile for cellular phones, and MMC and MMCplus versions for digital cameras.

Samsung will begin mass production of its thumbnail-sized memory cards in early 2005.

About Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2003 parent company sales of US$36.4 billion and net income of US$5.0 billion. Employing approximately 88,000 people in 89 offices in 46 countries, the company consists of six main business units: Corporate Technology Operations, Digital Appliance Business, Digital Media Business, LCD Business, Semiconductor Business and Telecommunication Network Business. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is the world’s largest producer of color monitors, color TVs, memory chips and TFT-LCDs. For more information, visit http://www.samsung.com.