Cartesian Data emerges as flash card challenger

Electronic News, March 10, 1997 by Andrew MacLellan

Sunnyvale, Calif.--In a bid to out-muscle flash memory-based cards as the medium of choice for mobile storage, Cartesian Data has rolled out a new technology which it claims will maintain the durability and low-power consumption demanded by handheld electronics but at half the price of flash devices.

Cartesian, founded in 1993 by a group of data storage executives, last week introduced a patented rectilinear architecture called Transverse Memory Technology (TMT) which the company projected will be designed into memory systems products for introduction within the next year.

According to Cartesian president James B. Downey, formerly president of Read-Rite and senior VP of operations with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), TMT will target storage-intensive but cost-sensitive applications such as handheld PCs and digital cameras, devices which are being aggressively pursued by the flash card industry.

Cartesian will enter the market through a series of manufacturing partnerships and licensing agreements with unnamed storage houses and is in the process of securing additional financing, according to Tom Griffin, the company's VP of marketing. Because of its claimed low power and flexible form factor, TMT's first intended conquest will be the mobile market, although more diverse storage applications may follow, the company said.

"Our early products will be add-on memory modules implemented in a standard PC Card format, featuring an ATA bus interface for plug-and-play in DOS, Windows, Mac OS and other popular operating systems," said Mr. Downey.

Noting that Microsoft's Windows CE operating system and other new software for mobile computing will require at least 20MB of memory, Mr. Griffin asserted that TMT's ability to leverage off-the-shelf components from the magnetic disk drive industry will enable it to compete at 50 percent of today's $10-per-MB flash prices.

TMT uses magnetic media and thin film transducers but does not rotate the media as in a traditional hard disk drive application. Instead, the head oscillates back-and-forth on an X-axis, while the medium moves on the Y-axis in a coordinated fashion to read and record data. TMT remains static when no command is being executed which accounts for its low power consumption, according to Mr. Griffin.

Additionally, TMT-based heads rest directly on the medium and are more rugged than hard disk drive heads which maintain a flying height of several micro-inches above the disk. While it is admittedly less durable than solid state flash cards, Mr. Griffin said TMT-based storage cards will be rated to withstand a drop from a height of eight feet.

Slated to be available in initial capacities from 20MB to 40MB, TMT devices will offer faster access times than hard disk drives and will be enclosed in a Type II PCMCIA card form factor when first introduced.