Industry's Smallest Memory Card To Be Used In Consumer Electronics Products; Miniature Card Promotes Interoperability Between Consumer Devices and the PC

Business Wire, Jan 24, 1996

FOLSOM, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 24, 1996--A matchbook-sized memory card won support from a host of consumer electronics companies today as they announced their backing of a new digital media specification describing a card to store and exchange image, text and voice data.

The Miniature Card, the industry's smallest memory card, will be designed into a variety of electronics products such as digital cameras, audio recorders, cellular phones, handheld computers and other handheld consumer devices. Adoption of the Miniature Card specification fosters the compatible exchange of data between handheld consumer devices and personal computers.

Companies supporting the Miniature Card specification include Compaq Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., General Magic, Konica Corp., Microsoft Corp., Nokia Mobile Phones, Olympus Optical Company, Ltd. and Philips Electronics in addition to Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Fujitsu Ltd., Intel Corp., Micron Technology Inc. and Sharp Corp.

The companies will promote their implementation of Miniature Card solutions based on specifications generated by the Miniature Card Implementers Forum. The Miniature Card Implementers Forum is the vehicle for developing and distributing the Miniature Card specification.

The Miniature Card measures 38mm (width) x 33mm (length) x 3.5mm (height), making it approximately one-fourth the size of PC cards (PCMCIA) and the smallest standard form factor currently available. It features a rugged, pinless connector well-suited for consumer usage. Based on current chip technology, it can accommodate up to 64-Megabytes of flash, DRAM or ROM memory.

Other companies supporting the Miniature Card specification include Augat Inc., Elastomeric Technologies Inc., M-Systems Inc., Mitsubishi Plastics, Inc., SCM Microsystems, Sycom Technologies and SystemSoft Corp.

The mission of the Miniature Card Implementers Forum is to promote the Miniature Card specification technology and its benefits of lower system costs, improved interoperability and greater capabilities to the users of electronic devices. The Miniature Card specification will be available in February 1996. For more information on the Forum and the Miniature Card specification contact 916/356-7060. -0-

Note to Editors: Contact information and contributed quotes from the Miniature Card specification supporters named in this release follows.

Supporters Of The New Digital Media

Systems Suppliers

Compaq Computer Corporation

"As the leader in the PC industry, Compaq welcomes the opportunity to work with other market leaders to promote emerging standards that make PCs easier to use. Compaq sees the Miniature Card as a space-efficient and easy way for users to expand the memory of mobile computing devices, as well as to share data with other electronic products."

Ed Olkkola, Vice President, Portables Division

Contact: Hedy Baker, 713/514-0484

Nokia

"With the arrival of SmartPhones, Nokia believes that the Miniature Card is the ideal vehicle to enhance the functionality of these products."

Janne Jormalainen, Director of Engineering, Wireless Data Group

Contact: Roy Gunter, 214/257-9800

Philips Electronics

"We are pleased to support the Miniature Card specification. By incorporating the Miniature Card into the design of our handheld device, we can offer our customers a smaller, easy-to-use and more cost-effective solution for memory expansion."

Tony Fadell, Chief Technology Officer

Contact: Lisa Schiltz 408/523-2874

Hewlett-Packard Company

Contact: Gary Stockman, Copithorne & Bellows, 408/988-2100

General Magic

Contact: Tom Hershenson, 408/774-4343

Konica Corporation

Contact: Corporate Communications, 03-3349-5251

Microsoft Corporation

Contact: Kelly Stremel, Waggner Edstrom, 503/245-0905

Olympus Optical Co., Ltd.

Contact: Kenji Furuta, 03-3340-2315

Sycom Technologies, Inc.

Contact: Thomas J. O'Brien (engineering), Ari B. Naim, Ph.D. (strategic planning), 610/660-5770

IC Suppliers

Advanced Micro Devices

"There are many exciting new opportunities emerging for digital consumer products in the second half of this decade. Flash memory is the key enabling technology in this market. As the leading supplier of single power supply Flash memory, AMD has worked closely with major consumer electronics companies and other Flash vendors to define the Miniature Card standard for small form factor removable digital media. AMD believes this implementation will be the architecture of choice."

Walid Maghribi, Vice President, Non-Volatile Memory Division

Contact: Kerry Gallagher, 408/749-2920

Intel Corporation

"We believe Flash memory is the ideal data storage medium for handheld consumer devices and for bringing that data back to the PC for further use. We have several design wins for Miniature Card in-hand and will ship product in the second quarter of this year."

Bill Howe, Vice President, General Manager for the Memory Components Division

Contact: Anne Hall, 916/356-6515

Fujitsu Limited

"Miniature Card is suited for any portable consumer electronic device. As more companies support the Miniature Card Implementers Forum and a wide variety of portable devices adopt Miniature Card, this will eventually become a useful and convenient industry standard."