
A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using
flash memory
Flash memory is an electronic 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 the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both us ...
. These are commonly used in digital
portable electronic devices. They allow adding memory to such devices using a card in a socket instead of a protruding
USB flash drives.
History
The basis for memory card technology is
flash memory
Flash memory is an electronic 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 the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both us ...
. It was invented by
Fujio Masuoka at
Toshiba in 1980 and commercialized by Toshiba in 1987.
PC Card
In computing, PC Card is a configuration for computer parallel communication peripheral interface, designed for laptop computers. Originally introduced as PCMCIA, the PC Card standard as well as its successors like CardBus were defined and devel ...
s (PCMCIA) were the first commercial memory card formats (type I cards) to come out, but are now mainly used in industrial applications and to connect I/O devices such as
modems. In 1992,
SanDisk introduced FlashDisk, a PCMCIA card and one of the first memory cards that did not require battery power to retain its contents.
Since 1994, a number of memory card formats smaller than the PC Card arrived. The first one was
CompactFlash and later
SmartMedia and
Miniature Card. The desire for smaller cards for cell-phones,
PDA
PDA may refer to:
Science and technology
* Patron-driven acquisition, a mechanism for libraries to purchase books
*Personal digital assistant, a mobile device
* Photodiode array, a type of detector
* Polydiacetylenes, a family of conducting poly ...
s, and