SanDisk Announces that Canon Selects SanDisk CompactFlash Memory Cards as the Digital Film in the New Canon PowerShot 350 Digital Camera

Business Wire, Feb 19, 1997

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 19, 1997--SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) announced today that Canon Computer Systems, Inc. will user rugged, reliable and economical CompactFlash (CF) memory cards developed by SanDisk as the digital film in Canon's new PowerShot 350 digital camera.

The camera was introduced Feb. 18. A 2MB CompactFlash card will be included with the sale of every PowerShot 350 which has a built-in slot for CF cards. As the camera has no internal memory, removable CF cards will serve as the only digital film that the camera will use. Under an OEM agreement, SanDisk will produce CF cards for sale under the Canon label.

SanDisk officials said that Canon's decision to employ small-size CompactFlash cards in the PowerShot 350 continues a strong industry trend of camera manufacturers introducing new digital cameras that use CompactFlash as the digital film. With eight recently-introduced digital cameras all using CF film cards, CompactFlash has emerged as the de facto global standard for small form factor digital film.

The Canon PowerShot 350, which will be bundled with a 2MB CompactFlash card and other accessories, will be available in April, 1997. The 2MB CF card will store up to 47 pictures in the camera's normal resolution mode, up to 24 pictures in the fine mode and up to 11 pictures in the super fine mode.

Canon is one of the founding members of the CompactFlash Association, an organization comprised of 60 leading computing, consumer electronics, communications and semiconductor companies that promotes CompactFlash as global, small form factor storage standard. Toru Takahashi, director and senior general manager, research and development headquarters at Canon, is co-chairman of the association.

Nelson Chan, SanDisk's vice president of marketing said, "Canon's introduction of the PowerShot 350 is part of a major industry trend in which new digital cameras have no embedded memory and must use removable memory cards. That trend has been confirmed by a number of recent camera introductions."

Chan added, "Canon's endorsement of CompactFlash is very important and highlights another significant industry trend -- camera vendors have started to base entire product lines on the CompactFlash film standard.

"Canon, for example, also selected CompactFlash as the digital film for its PowerShot 600 digital camera, which was introduced last June. Camera manufacturers are designing CF slots into new product lines ranging from low-end cameras to top-of-the-line digital cameras for professionals."

The PowerShot 350 has a standard VGA 480 X 640 pixel resolution and a 1.8-inch color LCD, which allows immediate viewing of pictures taken. The camera weighs only 10.2 ounces, including batteries and is 3.5 inches wide, 3.75 inches high and 2 inches deep.

After taking pictures, PowerShot users can remove the CompactFlash card and, with the aid of an inexpensive, passive PC adapter card, move the images to desktop, portable and handheld computers, printers, digital audio recorders and other electronic systems. The pictures can be viewed on the computers, transmitted to other PCs, faxed, inserted into newsletters, reports and other documents, be used to set up Internet pages or printed out as standard, hard copy pictures.

The cards, which are about the size of a matchbook, can be easily removed and replaced with higher capacity CF cards, which are currently available in 4, 6, 8, 10 or 15 MB capacities. CF, based on flash semiconductor technology, is an economical storage solution because the cards can be repeatedly used for many decades to take hundreds of thousands of pictures.

SanDisk Corp., the world's largest supplier of flash data storage products, designs, manufactures and markets industry standard, solid-state data, image and audio storage products using proprietary, high density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk has strategic alliances with Seagate Technology, Matsushita Electronic Corp., NEC Corp. and LG Semicon. Seagate holds a 25 percent equity stake in SanDisk. The company is based in Sunnyvale, Calif. -0-

Note to Editors: CompactFlash and CF are trademarks of SanDisk Corp.

SanDisk's Web site/home page address: http://www.sandisk.com .

CONTACT: SanDisk Corp.

Nelson Chan, 408/542-0456

Bob Goligoski, 408/542-0463