Sandisk Announces Higher Capacity Compact Flash Cards
Sandisk Press Release 09/11/04
SANDISK INTRODUCES 4 AND 8 GIGABYTE INDUSTRIAL CF CARDS AND 8 AND 16GB INDUSTRIAL PC CARDS
Speed, Reliability and Cost Efficiency Offer World-Class Flash Storage Solutions For Today’s Demanding Industrial Applications
Munich, Germany, November 9, 2004 - Providing a reliable storage alternative to hard drives, SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today announced significantly higher capacities and faster read/write times for its industrial product line including Industrial Grade and Standard Grade Flash ATA cards. These new cards now provide memory options of as much as 16 gigabytes (GB) for PC Cards and up to 8GB for CompactFlash cards. The announcement was made at Electronica 2004, where SanDisk is exhibiting in Hall A4, Stand 243 of the New Munich Trade Fair Center.
The new cards double the current maximum flash storage capacities of these form factors. The highest capacities for industrial CF cards, which are the more popular Type I form factors, are increased from 2GB to 4GB (industrial grade) and from 4GB to 8GB (standard grade). Likewise, the PC Cards, which are Type II form factors and are based on state-of-the-art 90nm (nanometer) NAND flash technology, will go from 4GB to 8GB for industrial grade and from 8GB to 16GB for standard grade. The cards are expected to be available starting in December. Pricing is being determined and will vary from region to region.
The CompactFlash card, invented by SanDisk, weighs just half an ounce and is the size of a matchbook. With an industry-standard ATA compatible 50-pin cartridge, it can be easily designed into virtually any application, providing reliable, low-power storage. The ATA PC Cards provide interoperability across virtually all platforms and are ideal for devices that require high capacity, low-power storage solutions. For industrial grade cards of 256MB and up, read/write performance clocks out at a speedy 20 megabytes per second.*
?These higher capacity points and performance of the CF and PC cards will enable a wave of new applications driven by lower price points,? said Norm Frentz, SanDisk?s product marketing manager for industrial products.
?Manufacturers will be able to replace hard drives and design in solid-state flash solutions that are durable and reliable. These new specifications are industry-leading in terms of capacity and sequential file performance,? he said. Among companies that can benefit from converting to flash memory ATA solutions are those in the networking and telecom, medical, military, automotive and factory automation channels, said Frentz.
The industrial grade CF and PC cards offer extended temperature ranges, extreme endurance, an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) of 3 million hours, extended shock and vibration resistance, complete serialization and traceability, and a seven-year warranty. The standard grade cards offer a competitively priced product with high endurance and 1 million hours of MTBF.
All SanDisk industrial ATA products provide superior random access times for booting, firmware that can be upgraded in the field, industry-leading write abort brown-out handling, and exceptional reliability and endurance. SanDisk?s statistically based quality control system offers 100 percent testing of all industrial products.
SanDisk, the world?s largest supplier of flash memory data storage card products, designs, manufactures and markets industry-standard, solid-state data, digital imaging and audio storage products using its patented, high density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is based in Sunnyvale, CA.
* Based on HD Bench software testing and average sustained data rates for large sequential file transfers.