A memory card or flash card is an electronic flash memory data storage device used for storing digital information. They are commonly used in many electronic devices, including digital cameras, mobile phones, laptop computers, MP3 players, and video game consoles. They are small, re-recordable, and able to retain data without power.
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PC Cards (PCMCIA) were among first commercial memory card formats (type I cards) to come out in the 1990s, but are now mainly used in industrial applications and to connect I/O devices such as modems. In 1990s, a number of memory card formats smaller than PC Card arrived, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, and Miniature Card. The desire for smaller cards for cell-phones, PDAs, and compact digital cameras drove a trend that left the previous generation of "compact" cards looking big. In digital cameras SmartMedia and CompactFlash had been very successful, in 2001 SM alone captured 50% of the digital camera market and CF had a stranglehold on professional digital cameras. By 2005 however, SD/MMC had nearly taken over SmartMedia's spot, though not to the same level and with stiff competition coming from Memory Stick variants, as well as CompactFlash. In industrial fields, even the venerable PC card (PCMCIA) memory cards still manage to maintain a niche, while in mobile phones and PDAs, the memory card market was highly fragmented until 2010 when micro-SD came to dominate new high-end phones and tablet computers.
Since 2010 new products of Sony (previously only using Memory Stick) and Olympus (previously only using XD-Card) are offered with an additional SD-Card slot.[1] Effectively the format war has turned in SD-Card's favor.[2][3][4]
| Name | Acronym | Form factor | DRM |
|---|---|---|---|
| PC Card | PCMCIA | 85.6 × 54 × 3.3 mm | No |
| CompactFlash I | CF-I | 43 × 36 × 3.3 mm | No |
| CompactFlash II | CF-II | 43 × 36 × 5.5 mm | No |
| SmartMedia | SM / SMC | 45 × 37 × 0.76 mm | No |
| Memory Stick | MS | 50.0 × 21.5 × 2.8 mm | MagicGate |
| Memory Stick Duo | MSD | 31.0 × 20.0 × 1.6 mm | MagicGate |
| Memory Stick PRO Duo | MSPD | 31.0 × 20.0 × 1.6 mm | MagicGate |
| Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo | MSPDX | 31.0 × 20.0 × 1.6 mm | MagicGate |
| Memory Stick Micro M2 | M2 | 15.0 × 12.5 × 1.2 mm | MagicGate |
| Miniature Card | 37 × 45 × 3.5 mm | No | |
| Multimedia Card | MMC | 32 × 24 × 1.5 mm | No |
| Reduced Size Multimedia Card | RS-MMC | 16 × 24 × 1.5 mm | No |
| MMCmicro Card | MMCmicro | 12 × 14 × 1.1 mm | No |
| Secure Digital card | SD | 32 × 24 × 2.1 mm | CPRM |
| SxS | SxS | Unknown | |
| Universal Flash Storage | UFS | Unknown | |
| miniSD card | miniSD | 21.5 × 20 × 1.4 mm | CPRM |
| microSD card | microSD | 15 × 11 × 0.7 mm | CPRM |
| xD-Picture Card | xD | 20 × 25 × 1.7 mm | No |
| Intelligent Stick | iStick | 24 × 18 × 2.8 mm | No |
| Serial Flash Module | SFM | 45 × 15 mm | No |
| µ card | µcard | 32 × 24 × 1 mm | Unknown |
| NT Card | NT NT+ | 44 × 24 × 2.5 mm | No |
| XQD card | XQD | 38.5 × 29.8 × 3.8 mm | Unknown |
Video game consoles use memory cards to hold saved game data. Cartridge-based systems primarily used battery-backed RAM within each individual cartridge to hold saves for that game. The Neo Geo AES, released in 1990 by SNK, was the first video game console able to use a memory card. AES memory cards were also compatible with Neo-Geo MVS arcade cabinets, allowing players to migrate saves between home and arcade systems and vice versa. Memory cards became commonplace when home consoles moved to read-only optical discs for storing the game program, beginning with systems such as the TurboGrafx-CD and Mega-CD.
Until the sixth generation of video game consoles, memory cards were based on proprietary formats; later systems have used established industry hardware formats for memory cards.
Home consoles now commonly use hard disk drive storage for saved games. though most portable gaming systems still rely on custom memory cartridges to store program data, due to their low power consumption, smaller physical size and reduced mechanical complexity.
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