Trek 2000 International Limited is a Singaporean technology company that is listed on the

Singapore Exchange The Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) is a Singaporean investment holding company that provides different services related to securities and derivatives trading and others. SGX is also a member of the World Federation of Exchanges and the Asian ...

(SGX:TREK). The company claims to be the inventor of the ThumbDrive, a

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

data storage device. The company owns a library of more than 600

patents A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

, with 360 granted patents. It has also developed numerous other products in the same consumer electronics market segments including the Ai-Ball and offers products such as SSDs and Flash Drives. The ThumbDrive trademark is registered by Trek 2000 International in international markets, although the original inventors of the USB flash drive and the related patents are the subjects of multiple disputes.

History

In 1995, Trek’s current chief executive officer and chairman

Henn Tan Henn Tan, is the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Executive Director of Trek 2000 International, the company that invented the ThumbDrive, the first USB flash drive. This invention revolutionised the portable media storage industry and led to ...

bought over the company, then a family-owned electronic components trading business, for S$1 million with a plan to provide customised engineering to companies. Tan and his engineers subsequently began to explore ways to utilise the USB interface to create a device that could replace the

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

, and this led to the eventual development of the ThumbDrive. In 2000, Trek launched the ThumbDrive at the

CeBIT CeBIT was the largest and most internationally representative computer expo. The trade fair was held each year on the Hanover fairground, the world's largest fairground, in Hanover, Germany. In its day, it was considered a barometer of cur ...

international trade fair for information technology and telecommunications in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Response to the product was overwhelming even though the booth was only modestly decorated. The success of the ThumbDrive propelled Trek into the global arena. The company grew from a five-man outfit to a global enterprise with offices in more than ten countries including the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

Products

Trek’s products include the ThumbDrive, Flucard, and Ai-Ball.Chua, H. H. (2010, January 21). S'pore-made wireless camera memory card. ''The Straits Times''. Retrieved March 8, 2010, from Factiva database The Flucard, a

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...

enabled

SD card Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDis ...

, is hoped to eventually replace the standard SD card. Trek also provides customised engineering design.

References

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History

Products

References

See also