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The xD-Picture Card is an obsolete form of flash memory card, used in
digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices ...
s made by
Olympus Olympus or Olympos ( grc, Ὄλυμπος, link=no) may refer to: Mountains In antiquity Greece * Mount Olympus in Thessaly, northern Greece, the home of the twelve gods of Olympus in Greek mythology * Mount Olympus (Lesvos), located in Le ...
and Fujifilm during the 2000s. The xD in the xD-Picture Card stands for eXtreme Digital. xD cards were manufactured with capacities of 16  MB up to 2  GB. The standard was phased out in the late 2000s in favour of the
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 ...
, which had been its primary competitor.


History

The cards were developed by
Olympus Olympus or Olympos ( grc, Ὄλυμπος, link=no) may refer to: Mountains In antiquity Greece * Mount Olympus in Thessaly, northern Greece, the home of the twelve gods of Olympus in Greek mythology * Mount Olympus (Lesvos), located in Le ...
and Fujifilm, and introduced into the market in July 2002.
Toshiba Corporation , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure syst ...
and
Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of the Samsung chaebol, acc ...
manufactured the cards for Olympus and Fujifilm. xD cards were sold under other
brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...
s, including
Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
,
SanDisk SanDisk is a brand for flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, and digital audio players, manufactured and marketed by Western Digital. The original company, SanDisk Corporation was acquir ...
, PNY, and
Lexar Lexar Media, Inc. is a Chinese brand of flash memory products manufactured by the Chinese company Longsys. The Lexar "JumpDrive" trademark was often used synonymously with the term USB flash drives when the technology was first adopted. Histo ...
, but were not branded with the respective companies' logos, except for Kodak. Previously, xD competed primarily with
Secure Digital 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 ...
(SD) cards,
CompactFlash CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994. CompactFlash became one of the most successful of the e ...
(CF), and
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
's Memory Stick. Because of its higher cost and limited usage in products other than digital cameras, xD lost ground to SD, which is broadly used by cellular phones, personal computers, digital audio players and many other digital cameras. Olympus began to move away from the xD format with the mid-2009 announcement of the E-P1 camera, which supported only
Secure Digital 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 ...
memory cards. As of Spring 2010, all new Olympus cameras announced at the 2010
Consumer Electronics Show CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event t ...
and Photo Marketing Association International Trade Show can use SD cards. This changeover to the SD card format has never been officially announced by Olympus Corporation. The higher-end DSLR cameras such as the E-3 and E-5 among others continue to use
CompactFlash CompactFlash (CF) is a flash memory mass storage device used mainly in portable electronic devices. The format was specified and the devices were first manufactured by SanDisk in 1994. CompactFlash became one of the most successful of the e ...
cards as well. Certain final Olympus cameras using xD cards are also supporting
microSD 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 SanDi ...
cards with a special, included adapter. Fuji released its last digital camera accepting that card, namely
Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR The Fujifilm FinePix F series is a line of compact digital cameras that was known for its low-light performance in 2005, with relatively low image noise and natural colors even at high ISO settings. With its relatively large, but moderate resolu ...
(a variant of 2008 FinePix F100fd), being released back in Q2 2009, as being moving away from xD format since Q4 2008.


Comparison with rival formats

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
''Best Sellers in xD-Picture Cards'' reports no products offered with a ''Date First Available'' since 4 August 2009.


Advantages

* Contains no
flash translation layer A flash memory controller (or flash controller) manages data stored on flash memory (usually NAND flash) and communicates with a computer or electronic device. Flash memory controllers can be designed for operating in low duty-cycle environmen ...
(designed to emulate the block device structure of a magnetic disk drive). Better-designed
flash file system A flash file system is a file system designed for storing files on flash memory–based storage devices. While flash file systems are closely related to file systems in general, they are optimized for the nature and characteristics of flash me ...
s can directly access the
NAND flash Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...
hardware. * Very similar to a standard NAND chip. Modified XD readers can be used to read arbitrary NAND chips.


Disadvantages

* Card format is
proprietary {{Short pages monitor