Miniature Card

Last updated
Miniature Card Intel Miniature Card Series 100 Flash 4MB 20081221.jpg
Miniature Card

Miniature Card or MiniCard was a flash or SRAM memory card standard first promoted by Intel in 1995. The card was backed by Advanced Micro Devices, Fujitsu and Sharp Electronics. They are no longer manufactured. The Miniature Card Implementers Forum (MCIF) promoted this standard for consumer electronics, such as PDAs and palmtops, digital audio recorders, digital cameras and early smartphones. The Miniature Card is 37 × 45 × 3.5 mm thick and can have devices on both sides of the substrate. Its 60-pin connector was a memory-only subset of PCMCIA and featured 16-bit data and 24-bit address bus with 3.3 or 5-volt signaling. Miniature Cards support Attribute Information Structure (AIS) in the I²C identification EEPROM.

The Miniature Card format competed with SmartMedia and CompactFlash cards, also released during the mid-1990s, and the earlier, larger Type I PC Cards. Ultimately, CompactFlash and SmartMedia cards were more successful in the consumer electronics market.

Philips Velo 500 and CISCO 800 and 1700 used Miniature Cards.

See also

Related Research Articles

Industry Standard Architecture 16-bit internal bus of IBM PC/AT

Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) is the 16-bit internal bus of IBM PC/AT and similar computers based on the Intel 80286 and its immediate successors during the 1980s. The bus was (largely) backward compatible with the 8-bit bus of the 8088-based IBM PC, including the IBM PC/XT as well as IBM PC compatibles.

PC Card Interface and specification for memory cards and expansion peripherals

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 developed by the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA).

Expansion card printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector, or expansion slot on a computer motherboard, backplane or riser card to add functionality to a computer system via the expansion bus

In computing, an expansion card, expansion board, adapter card or accessory card is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector, or expansion slot, on a computer motherboard, backplane or riser card to add functionality to a computer system via the expansion bus.

Memory Stick Removable flash memory card format, launched by Sony

Memory Stick is a removable flash memory card format, originally launched by Sony in late 1998. In addition to the original Memory Stick, this family includes the Memory Stick PRO, a revision that allows greater maximum storage capacity and faster file transfer speeds; Memory Stick Duo, a small-form-factor version of the Memory Stick ; the even smaller Memory Stick Micro (M2), and the Memory Stick PRO-HG, a high speed variant of the PRO to be used in high-definition video and still cameras.

Memory card Small, thin and removable digital data storage device, often designed to be semi-permanently installed inside a larger device

A memory card or memory cartridge is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in portable electronic devices, such as digital cameras, mobile phones, computers, tablets, PDAs, portable media players, video game consoles, synthesizers, electronic keyboards and digital pianos.

CompactFlash Memory card format

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.

SD card Type of memory storage for portable devices

Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Card Association (SDA) for use in portable devices.

MultiMediaCard Memory card format

MultiMediaCard, officially abbreviated as MMC, is a memory card standard used for solid-state storage. Unveiled in 1997 by SanDisk and Siemens AG, MMC is based on a surface-contact low pin-count serial interface using a single memory stack substrate assembly, and is therefore much smaller than earlier systems based on high pin-count parallel interfaces using traditional surface-mount assembly such as CompactFlash. Both products were initially introduced using SanDisk NOR-based flash technology. MMC is about the size of a postage stamp: 24 mm × 32 mm × 1.4 mm. MMC originally used a 1-bit serial interface, but newer versions of the specification allow transfers of 4 or 8 bits at a time. MMC can be used in many devices that can use Secure Digital (SD) cards.

SmartMedia Memory card format

SmartMedia is a flash memory card standard owned by Toshiba, with capacities ranging from 2 MB to 128 MB. SmartMedia memory cards are no longer manufactured.

xD-Picture Card Memory card format

xD-Picture Card is a flash memory card format, used in digital cameras made by Olympus and Fujifilm. The xD in the xD-Picture Card stands for eXtreme Digital.

ExpressCard Specification for expansion and memory cards

ExpressCard, initially called NEWCARD, is an interface to connect peripheral devices to a computer, usually a laptop computer. The ExpressCard technical standard specifies the design of slots built into the computer and of expansion cards to insert in the slots. The cards contain electronic circuits and sometimes connectors for external devices. The ExpressCard standard replaces the PC Card standards.

Linear Flash

Linear Flash is a PC card flash memory format. Linear Flash requires no battery support, unlike somewhat faster SRAM, and features read/write speeds much faster than similar, less expensive ATA-type cards, which include CompactFlash and Memory Stick. Like an SRAM, Linear Flash supports execute in place (XIP) applications in mobile PC and embedded equipment.

P2 (storage media) Memory card format

P2 is a professional digital recording solid-state memory storage media format introduced by Panasonic in 2004, and especially tailored to electronic news-gathering (ENG) applications. It features tapeless (non-linear) recording of DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO25, DVCPRO50, DVCPRO-HD, or AVC-Intra streams on a solid-state flash memory. The P2 card is essentially a RAID of Secure Digital (SD) memory cards with an LSI controller tightly packaged in a die-cast PC Card enclosure, so data transfer rate increases as memory capacity increases. The system includes cameras, decks as drop-in replacements for videocassette recorders (VCR), and a special 5.25-inch computer drive for random-access integration with non-linear editing systems (NLE). The cards can also be used directly where a PC card (PCMCIA) slot is available, as in most older notebook computers, as a normal hard disk drive, although a custom software driver must first be loaded.

Microdrive Type of hard drive intended to provide a higher-capacity alternative to memory cards

Microdrive is a registered trademark for miniature, 1-inch hard disks produced by IBM and Hitachi. These rotational media storage devices were designed to fit in CompactFlash (CF) Type II slots. The release of similar drives by other makers led to them often being referred to as "microdrives" too. By 2015, Microdrives were viewed as obsolete, having been overtaken by solid-state flash media in read/write performance, storage capacity, durability, and price.

The PocketZip is a medium-capacity floppy disk storage system that was made by Iomega in 1999 that uses proprietary, small, very thin, 40 MB disks. Its relation to the original Zip drive and disk is the floppy medium and relatively much higher capacity than standard floppy disks. It was known as the "Clik!" drive until the click of death class action lawsuit regarding mass failures of Iomega's Zip drives. Thenceforth, it was renamed to PocketZip. A 100 MB Pocket Zip drive version had been in the works, was intended to be backwards compatible with the 40 MB disks, but ended up being vaporware and PocketZip itself would be discontinued as well.

In computing, external storage comprises devices that store information outside a computer. Such devices may be permanently attached to the computer, may be removable or may use removable media.

eMate 300 personal digital assistant by Apple

The eMate 300 is a personal digital assistant designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer to the education market as a low-cost laptop running the Newton operating system. It was the only Newton Device with a built-in keyboard. The eMate was introduced March 7, 1997 for US$799 and was discontinued along with the Apple Newton product line and its operating system on February 27, 1998.

Jornada (PDA)

The Jornada was a line of personal digital assistants or PDAs manufactured by Hewlett-Packard. The Jornada was a broad product line that included Palm-Size PCs, Handheld PCs, and Pocket PCs. The first model was the 820, released in 1998, and the last was the 928 model in 2002 when Compaq and HP merged. The Jornada line was then succeeded by the more popular iPAQ model PDAs. All Jornada models ran Microsoft Operating Systems that were based on Windows CE.

The JEIDA memory card standard was a popular memory card standard at the beginning of memory cards appearing on portable computers. JEIDA cards could be used to expand system memory or as a solid-state storage drive. Before the advent of the JEIDA standard, laptops had proprietary cards that were not interoperable with other manufacturers laptops, other laptop lines, or even other models in the same line.

A datacard is an electronic card for data operations.