Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced semiconductor technology solutions, announced it has developed an 8Gb microSD (Secure Digital) memory card, which will be compatible with newly-developed mobile phones.
Featuring the highest capacity today for a microSD card, the new fingernail-sized card is capable of storing 2 000 MP3 music files, 4 000 digital photos, or approximately five DVD-quality movies.
SD cards, to date, have been largely used for data storage in digital still cameras, and increasingly in televisions.
MicroSD cards, which are a quarter the size of an SD card, are backward compatible with SD cards using an extender, to allow multimedia files downloaded by mobile phones to be easily displayed on other media. Today's mobile phones currently accommodate 1Mb or 2Mb MicroSD cards, but the new, upcoming handsets will be developed to accommodate the new card.
With a read speed of 16Mbps and a write speed of 6Mbps, Samsung's 8Gb microSD card well exceeds the Speed Class 4 SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) standard, which requires a data write speed of 4Mbps. This is also much faster than the SD Speed Class 2 designation carried by most competing microSD cards currently on the market.
This achievement is the latest in a string of record-breaking improvements in flash memory cards for Samsung, as it continues to aggressively pursue its goal of being the development leader for the SD card market, as well as the competing MMC (multimedia card) market.
The market research firm Dataquest predicts that the memory card market as a whole will average 10% annual growth between 2006 and 2010, while demand for high density 8Gb cards will grow an average of 2.6 times per year over the same period.
By 2010, the 8Gb memory card will be the market mainstream in terms of units sold.
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Samsung Electronics is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2006 parent company sales of US$63.4 billion and net income of US$8.5 billion. Employing approximately 138 000 people in 124 offices in 56 countries, the company consists of five main business units: Digital Media Business, LCD Business, Semiconductor Business, Telecommunication Network Business, and Digital Appliance Business. Recognised as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones, and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com.