Portable Connectivity: SD Memory Card’s Faster Role

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In this last decade, the undisputed leader in consumer electronics has been Apple...people stood in lines just to buy Apple’s i-products, their much-coveted inventory has been sold out often, and their subcontractors regularly ran out of components trying to meet demand. Nothing has been hotter in CE than sizzling Apple, right?

SD CardsSo here’s a question for you. Do you think you would you have done better 10 years ago by accepting 5 euro for each iPad sold (25 million as of June 2011), each iPhone sold (100 million as of March 2011) and each iPod sold (300 million at Jan. 2011)—or by accepting 1 euro for each SD memory card shipped?

Yes, that’s right...the SD memory card...that humble, under-estimated memory card that goes inside mobile phones, media players, computers, televisions, personal navigation devices, digital cameras and many other consumer electronics gadgets.

You probably guessed right if you read the title of this article: the SD memory card is one of the consumer electronics industry’s most successful innovations with an estimated 2.5 billion SD memory cards shipped in its 10-year history.

During those 10 years as Apple polished its fame, SD memory card went quietly about its business. Life is not fair and nor is business... the SD memory card will probably never receive the public acclaim that Apple elicits. Yet inside the CE business, this unsung product hero has outsold Apple’s biggest hits by 5:1.

During the past 10 years, the SD Association has seen an estimated 8000-plus consumer electronics models manufactured by more than 400 brands worldwide rely on SD standards. More than 1000 members give the SD memory card an ecosystem that boosts the removable media market leader to nearly 80% market share today.

And it all started with a first SD memory cards that offered an impressive (at that time) 8MB of storage capacity in the size of a postage stamp.

If that one sales record of 2.5 billion sold was all to be said, SD would still go down in CE history as one of our greatest products...but-- like Apple—the SD Association has had to adopt continuous innovation to succeed.

Part of that success comes as, throughout its 10 years, SD technology has maintained backward compatibility with previous generations. This commitment allows SD, SDHC and anticipated SDXC host devices and memory cards to coexist today on retailer shelves and in consumers’ homes. The basic form factors of SD memory cards – SD, miniSD and microSD – all share the same interoperability and plug-and-play convenience.

Paul Norbury, European Chair of the Marketing Committee, SD Association, says, “It’s not just about storage. This is about portable connectivity. Consumers want to share content. And SD memory cards are keeping pace with what the public wants.    Our standard brings choice so there are lots of different brands available. If it says SD, the public knows it will work.”

SD memory cards serve not only to store but are part of the consumer’s ability to survive in a world populated with devices...The SD memory card allow them to easily move their data, their music, their video from device to device.

“In the last 10-15 years...” says Norbury, “...retailers have seen a lot of new gadgets coming along. Now imagine the motorway that those gadgets had to run on would have only one lane of traffic going over a bridge...What SD memory card is doing is adding specs to open up five highways with 12 lanes each. This is what increasing bus speed does for you. The highway must be open and this shows the importance of our belief in performance marks for continuous innovation.”

Continuous innovation is what keeps a standards association relevant and vital in a fast-moving market where technology fuels growing consumer appetite.

SD Card Timeline

The SD association, says Norbury, wants to communicate this jump in performance to retailers and distributors who need to know there’s a new wow factor for their customers.

That wow factor comes with SD Associations’ new UHS-II bus-interface specification, SD bus-interface speed leaps up to 312 Megabytes per second.

Ultra High Speed was announced in June 2010 and UHS-I delivered bus-interface speeds of 104 Megabytes per second. Norbury explains, “We’ve tripled bus-interface speeds from last year’s UHS-I development, and we plan to double UHS-II speeds in the future.”

UHS-II turns SD memory cards into high-performing storage systems and consumers’ video and still cameras into professional-level equipment. These tripled bus-interface speeds give gadget and phone makers more flexible design options, including low voltage and low power consumption, for large and small SD devices without compromising data transfer rates.

Retailers will be able to use their knowledge to help their consumers to increase the power and possibility of their mobile phone at home and work, to record HD video directly onto their UHS-II memory card and to backup data.

Knowing the differences of the new speed classes, suggests Norbury, retailers can easily upsell consumers (who never seem to know as much about media as they do about the gadget they acquire).

The usual SD benefits will be amplified with the new UHS bus interface, providing faster continuous shooting speed for digital still cameras and higher resolution movie recordings in video cameras, including 3D HD. Since it is backwards-compatible, devices supporting UHS bus interface will accept the billions of existing SD memory cards in the market today.

That’s money in the bank for retailers who know how explain technology to customers. But the SD Association’s continuous improvement doesn’t stop there.

One of CE’s most exciting markets today is the eBook—and the SD Association also announced an eBook application spec that gives eBook publishers access to billions of SD-equipped mobile phones and other portable devices.

“SD continues to evolve its capabilities to support voracious consumer demand for portable movies, television broadcasts, HD home videos and now full-colour books,” notes Norbury.

The eBook application increases the value of SD-slotted mobile phones and other display devices. Publishers and readers can benefit from full-color, illustration intensive books (like graphic novels) available as pre-loaded and portable content.

The application lets consumers create an expandable digital library and view content on other SD devices. It also opens new (and secure) opportunities for content publishers limited by downloaded content restricted for use only on specific devices.

To add another credit to its industry role, the humble SD memory card may prove to have a growing role in resolving the dreaded DRM issues that divide consumers and content providers.

If Hollywood were to make a blockbuster movie about the CE industry, no doubt the Apple triage (iPad,iPod, iPhone) would have the starring roles...but the SD memory card might be in more scenes than any other single character. It might not be Harry Potter, but maybe more like Harry’s wand that quietly works the magic.

Go SD Association