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This is a simple MicroSD adapter card. It allows you to interface with any micro-controllers. It is perfect for mass storage, WAV/MP3 player and data logging. The adapter breaks out the MicroSD socket to a standard 0.1″ 8-pin header. It can be plug directly into breadboards. This adapter features innovations that set it apart from other SD card adapter. Innovations feature like on-board card detect LED, Push-Push socket, and 3.3V regulator. Which mean either 3.3V or 5.0V micro-controller can be connected directly with the board. You can even use this 3.3V to power external circuits up to 250mA.
MicroSD cards offer an inexpensive, flexible and reliable way to bring data logging and data storage solutions to your electronic design projects.
Pinout:
Features:
Source: Gravitech.
Flash memory is a basic necessity of any electronic device these days. Today we will talk about MultiMedia Cards [MMC] and Secure Digital [SD] cards.
First, a bit of history. The MMC format was developed by SanDisk and Siemens back in 1997. SD media was developed, jointly, by SanDisk, Panasonic and Toshiba. The SD standard was developed to improve upon the MMC format.
The two memory card types look the same. They are both about 24mm x 32mm x 2.1mm in size, or about the size of a US postage stamp. The one obvious, physical difference between the two is the Lock/Unlock switch on the left side of SD media. MMC does not have a sliding switch. The switch is meant for users to put the media into a Write Protected state. A condition where the user could read from the card, but could not write to it, or delete content off it.
The other physical difference between MMC and SD media is on the bottom side of the flash card. The MMC has 7 copper connectors and SD had 9 copper connectors. MMCPlus has 14 connectors on it. For a more technical reason please read here.
The MMC media has a transfer rate of around 9MB/s. The SD media is much faster with write speeds of 10MB/s and higher [always improving].
Both MMC media and SD media, are for the most part, interchangeable when being used in electronic devices. Of course it is always best to check with the manufacturer of your device, but it’s a general rull of thumb, both are interchangeable. With MMC media, it is more likely a customized piece of hardware, like GPS or medical equipment will require the MMC format, where-as most MP3 players, cameras, and “retail” electronics will take both types.
Renesas is the spin off company from NEC who’s already making waves with their newest announcement of a USB 3.0 host controller which supports four downstream ports.
This means the chip will provide more USB 3.0 ports to a motherboard, PCI card or embedded system applications. In addition the new controller reduces it’s power consumption and increases performance.
Renesas claims a 40% increase with this new controller, and I hate to say it, but that is a big jump from previous controllers – so I’m not totally convinced. So it’ll need to be one of those “guilty until proven innocent” situations. (more…)
USB 3.0 hard drives and flash drives will be gaining popularity in 2011. As with any commodity product, if you have a lot, you need something to manage them. The new Nexcopy USB Duplicator SSUSB160PC is designed for the job – can manage any number of bulk flash drive up-loads or off-loads.
The SSUSB160PC is the first SuperSpeed USB duplicator we’ve seen in the market. We read it can duplicate 32GBs of data in about 6 minutes…just imagine how much time that will save for the promotional guys or the corporate IT guys who need to deploy loads of data on USB.
Granted you’ll need to pony up for some expensive 3.0 drives, but if you’ve got the money for that, you’ve got the money for the $1,499 USB duplicator as well.
The USB copier can also perform some other tasks, like unique data streaming to each port, or data collecting information OFF the flash drive. So whether it be duplication, copying or streaming, the Nexcopy unit appears to be the ticket.
Source: EverythingUSB.com.
Trek 2000 Ltd introduces a wifi SD card where by the user could transfer files from a device, like a camera, to a computer without the need for cables or internet access.
We’ve seen this card before called the Eye-Fi card so we’ve been here before. What I like to see is the concept adopting on and more vendors are making such a device.
Trek 2000 has a bit of unique name for their SD wifi card; the “FluCard.” The FluCard was aptly named because Trek 2000 is hoping the product name will be contagious and easily remember by users. Of course, this naming idea is like “Kleenex” or “Google” where it just becomes a house-hold name. Trek has done this before, apparently the owner of Trek 20 coined the phrase “Thumb Drive” and we all know what that is!
The FluCard is a wifi device and does not need internet access to work. You could be in the middle of the Sudan and transfer files from your digital camera to your phone or computer. The wifi is license free.
The FluCard is comprised of a NAND flash chip for memory and an IC controller which has built in wifi capability.
To learn more, visit Trek 2000.
NAND memory and flash drives are usually hot in Oct through Dec, but this year it might be different. It seems the price of flash is dropping according to Digitimes. Apparently, growth of NAND Flash has been limited this year, especially amid lessened flash memory card and USB drive shipments.
This led to a veritable price ‘free fall’ during the second half of the ongoing year 2010, to the point where module makers are doing everything they can to not increase their inventories further.
For those interested in numbers, 8 Gb MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory chips got 10-14% cheaper during early November.
Likewise, the prices of 16 Gb and 64 Gb MLC products dropped more than 7% during the same period.
The chip makers are thinking the drastic dip in price will stimulate demand. What we are not taking into account is the up and coming TLC flash which is now getting more advanced controller support making the TLC technology more stable and cheaper to manufacturer. (more…)
If you haven’t noticed the shift yet, there is no doubt you’ll see it in 2011. We are talking about the shift from disk drive storage to solid state storage. Sure we’ve heard netbooks run off flash and some other high end laptops, but not until Steve Jobs announced their new MacBook will be all flash did we notice the tide beginning to change.
I’m not glorify Steve Jobs as the man who saw this coming, no, but understanding that Apple is the largest consumer of flash memory in the world – puts a different perspective on things.
Apple will single hand drive the consumer PC market away from disk drives to flash chips as their hard drives. Apple will do this in two steps. Step 1: Pass along their great discounts they undoubtedly get as being the largest consumer and Step 2: Decreasing boot time when the MacBooks are powered on.
We all curse at our PC during boot up because it just doesn’t happen fast enough. Folks who have iPads have already had the “crack” and are addicted. This will spread with the advent of flash in the MacBooks. This will undoubtedly challenge Windows competitors to equal the performance levels.
The Wall Street Journal did a more pragmatic approach to the subject if you’re looking for numbers and details. Check here.
CFast is a variant of Compact Flash. A traditional Compact Flash card is based off ATA or IDE bus for data transfer. Since most CF cards are used for embedded applications, the forum was looking to increase speed. They did this by creating CFast which is a technology based of Serial ATA bus.
This means the connector is completely different for Compact Flash cards and CFast cards. So if you are thinking about increasing your performance of a CF card while using your traditional CF card Reader, you’ll be S.O.L. The CFast uses a different connection type. In addition, if you are using the CF cards for camera’s, you’ll have to get a new camera…one that supports CFast connection. CFast cards use a 7-pin SATA data connector (identical to the standard SATA connector).
The data transfer rate of CFast is about 3 times faster than Compact Flash. So we’ve jumped from 100MB/s to about 300MB/s.
So here is a bit of information one could use for a cocktail conversation starter at your next computer club meeting, the start of flash memory.
The first piece of flash memory was invented way back in 1984. Flash was invented by Toshiba and by a guy named Dr. Fujio Masuoka. According to Toshiba records, the term “flash” was suggested by Dr. Masuoka’s colleague, Mr. Shoji Ariizumi because the erase process of the memory contents reminded him of a flash like in a camera.
Toshiba presented the new invention at the IEEE 1984 Integrated Electronics Devices Meeting in San Jose California and Intel saw the immediate value and jumped on board. By 1988 the first commercial NOR type flash chip was commercially available.
NOR based flash has long erase and write times and has a full address/ data interface. Meaning one can read or write data to any portion of the NOR chip. The NOR technology is mostly used for low levels of read/write cycles. So for example, NOR is great for BIOS and firmware of a device. NOR was the first version of flash, but everyone quickly realized a cheaper, faster solution is also needed.
In 1989 the first NAND flash chip was introduced. It had faster erase and write times, higher density, and lower cost than NOR flash – with ten times the endurance. The draw back with NAND [if you can call it that] is the I/O interface only allowing sequential access to data. Meaning you can only write to the device after the last bit of data has been written. This makes it suitable for mass-storage devices such as PC cards and various memory cards like USB, SD and microSD, and somewhat less useful for computer memory.
Source: TutorialsWeb.
3 bit-per-cell NAND is sampled out the manufacturers. The 3 bit per cell is exactly that, 3 bits of information are stored in each NAND cell. This increased the capacity while keeping the foot print the same size. This ultimately leads to larger storage capacity at a cheaper price. Traditionally, SLC [Single Layer Cell] and MLC [Multi Layer Cell] technology is used is USB and SD flash, but we will begin to see TLC [Triple Layer Cell or 3 bit per cell] technology have a full roll-out by the end of this year.
Over the past 18 months the biggest problem with TLC is the stability of the memory and performance, but Intel and Micron feel they overcame those problems and ready for production. More with their press release: (more…)
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