Out in Front: May 9, 1996
Siemens Components has announced plans for a miniature (37×45×1.4-mm) removable storage card that can carry 16 or 64 Mbits of ROM and that costs less than $5. The proposed format marks the fourth recent announcement of miniature, silicon-based, storage cards (see Flash targets miniature removable storage," EDN, Jan 18, 1996, pg 42).
Siemens' product, the MultiMediaCard (MMC), differs from SanDisk (Santa Clara, CA) CompactFlash cards, Intel (Santa Clara, CA) MiniCards, and Toshiba (Irvine, CA) Solid State Floppy Disk Cards in several key respects. First, the Siemens card employs a serial interface, and the others use a parallel interface. Second, you can stack multiple MMCs to increase capacity. Third, the MMC at least initially targets low-cost ROM, and the others' primary target is much more expensive, rewritable flash memory. Siemens claims that the interface and memory technologies allow MMCs to be cost-effective, even in toys, and predicts that applications will range to music storage and digital maps.
Time is perhaps the greatest challenge that Siemens faces. The new cards won't be available for sampling until late this year, and the company schedules production volumes for late 1997. Siemens is announcing the technology now to attempt to promulgate the card as an open industry standard. The company also hopes to launch an independent trade association to shepherd the new form factor.
—by Maury Wright
Siemens Components Inc, Cupertino, CA. (408) 777-4500.