Features - Storage Innovations:

PANASONIC LAUNCHES LINE-UP OF miniSD MEMORY CARDS

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd, best known by its Panasonic brand, announced its worldwide launch of miniSD Memory Cards in three capacity sizes -- 32MB, 64MB and 128MB. These three miniSD Memory Cards will be introduced in the U.S. market in May and in the European market this autumn.

The Panasonic miniSD Card is a flash memory card designed especially for use in mobile phones, such as the Panasonic's X700 that will be released in Europe at the same time as the new memory cards.

With mobile phones now offering built-in high-resolution camera functions, content downloading capabilities, and compatibility with PC data, there is a growing awareness of the need for removable memory cards to enhance mobile device capabilities. Manufacturers of mobile phones have also expressed a need for smaller memory cards that support further product downsizing.

The Panasonic miniSD Card has outstanding functions and performance in a tiny form factor that is only 40 percent of the volume of the standard SD Memory Card. Measuring just 21.5mm in length by 20mm in width by 1.4mm in thickness and weighing about a gram, it is the world's smallest flash memory card. The smaller size is expected to allow for even more dramatic product miniaturization and will give manufacturers greater design flexibility.

The 128MB Panasonic miniSD Card can store 880 still images or 2 hours and 50 minutes of music and its data transfer speed is up to 2MB per second. This high transfer speed not only improves the potential usability of mobile phones, it also helps to enable smooth exchanges of data with PC-related devices and audio-video products such as digital TVs, DVD recorders and printers with the use of the miniSD adapter which enables compatibility with all devices now equipped with a standard SD Memory Card slot.

Like the popular standard SD Memory Card, the new miniSD Card incorporates copyright protection technology. By preventing unauthorized copying, this function will allow content creators and owners to quickly make high-quality content available for new services with greater assurance about protection from piracy.