First Look: Gigabyte Compactflash Card

By Michael Singer

A North American subsidiary of Japanese high-tech titan Toshiba’s Monday unveiled a new flash memory card it says will let users pack in a monstrous amount of data in a space smaller than a pack of matches.

The new 1 gigabyte CompactFlash card, which the company dubs the “THNCF1G02MA,” measures 36.4mm (L) x 42.8mm (W) . The card is a combination of Toshiba’s low-power NAND flash and its CompactFlash form.

Irvine, Calif.-based Toshiba America Electronic Components (TAEC) said the new device is perfect for TVs, cameras, cordless phones or DVD players and offers ample capacity to store large files containing music, digital still and video images.

“Based on the popularity of CompactFlash and the bolstering demand for higher capacity removable storage, we are announcing our 1GB CompactFlash card to meet the needs of the ever-growing consumer market for higher-capacity flash cards,” said Brian Kumagai, business development manager for NAND flash memory products at TAEC. “This new device compliments our existing line-up of cards based on NAND flash, which provides the lowest cost-per-bit among flash memory technologies.”

The THNCF1G02MA incorporates four 2-gigabit memory devices and a controller. The company said the card achieves a sustained write speed of 1.5 megabytes per second (MB/s) and a sustained read speed of 6.5MB/s. The device is housed in a 3.3 millimeter (mm) thick card to meet the requirements of the CompactFlash Association Type-I Specification.

In addition to these small-form factor cards, Toshiba has several high-density NAND flash devices available ranging in densities from 64-Megabit (Mb) to 2Gb. For industrial use, Toshiba’s ATA Card and NAND Flash Drive, announced back in 2001, offers 2GB storage capacity compatible with hard disk drives.

The company said samples of the new 1GB CompactFlash are available now in OEM quantities, priced at $700 each. Toshiba plans on selling the CompactFlash cards directly to OEMs and channel partners to address retail and other channels under their respective brands.

Reprinted from Siliconvalley.internet.com.

Small Business Computing Staff
Small Business Computing Staff
Small Business Computing addresses the technology needs of small businesses, which are defined as businesses with fewer than 500 employees and/or less than $7 million in annual sales.

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