Memory card

The basis for memory card technology is flash memory.[1] It was invented by Fujio Masuoka at Toshiba in 1980,[2][3] and commercialized by Toshiba in 1987.[4][5]

PC Cards (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. 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, PDAs, and compact digital cameras drove a trend that left the previous generation of "compact" cards looking big. In 2001, SM alone captured 50% of the digital camera market and CF had captured the professional digital camera market. By 2005 however, SD/MMC had nearly taken over SmartMedia's spot, though not to the same level and with stiff competition coming from Memory Stick variants, as well CompactFlash. In industrial and embedded fields, even the venerable PC card (PCMCIA) memory cards still manage to maintain a niche, while in mobile phones and PDAs, the memory card has become smaller.

Initially memory cards were expensive, costing $1 per megabyte of capacity; this led to the development of the Microdrive and Dataplay. Both concepts became obsolete after flash memory prices became lower and capacities became higher.

Since 2010, new products of Sony (previously only using Memory Stick) and Olympus (previously only using XD-Card) have been offered with an additional SD-Card slot.[6] Effectively the format war has turned in SD-Card's favor.[7][8][9]

• 
  Secure Digital card (SD)
• 
  MiniSD Card with an SD card adapter
• 
  Memory Stick
• 
  CompactFlash (CF-I)
• 
  MultiMediaCard (MMC)
• 
  SmartMedia
• 
  xD-Picture Card

• PCMCIA ATA Type I Card (PC Card ATA Type I)
  • PCMCIA Type II, Type III cards
• CompactFlash Card (Type I), CompactFlash High-Speed
• CompactFlash Type II, CF+(CF2.0), CF3.0
  • Microdrive
• CFexpress
• MiniCard (Miniature Card) (max 64 MB / 64 MiB)
• SmartMedia Card (SSFDC) (max 128 MB) (3.3 V,5 V)
• xD-Picture Card, xD-Picture Card Type M
• Memory Stick, MagicGate Memory Stick (max 128 MB); Memory Stick Select, MagicGate Memory Stick Select ("Select" means: 2x128 MB with A/B switch)
• SecureMMC
• Secure Digital (SD Card), Secure Digital High-Speed, Secure Digital Plus/Xtra/etc (SD with USB connector)
  • miniSD card
  • microSD card (aka Transflash, T-Flash)
  • SDHC
  • WiFi SD Cards (SD Card With WiFi Card Built in) Powered by Device. (Eye-Fi, WiFi SD, Flash Air)
• MU-Flash (Mu-Card) (Mu-Card Alliance of OMIA)
• C-Flash
• SIM card (Subscriber Identity Module)
• Smart card (ISO/IEC 7810, ISO/IEC 7816 card standards, etc.)
• UFC (USB FlashCard) (uses USB)
• FISH Universal Transportable Memory Card Standard (uses USB)
• Intelligent Stick (iStick, a USB-based flash memory card with MMS)
• SxS (S-by-S) memory card, a new memory card specification developed by Sandisk and Sony. SxS complies to the ExpressCard industry standard.[10]
• Nexflash Winbond Serial Flash Module (SFM) cards, size range 1 mb, 2 mb and 4 mb.

Neo Geo 2KiB memory card

PlayStation 128KiB memory card

PlayStation 2 8MiB memory card

Xbox 360 memory card designed for saving game data. Software updates would allow USB Devices to act as storage for the Xbox 360 and later revisions of the console would remove the memory slot.

Many older video game consoles used memory cards to hold saved game data. Cartridge-based systems primarily used battery-backed volatile RAM within each individual cartridge to hold saves for that game. Cartridges without this RAM may have used a password system, or wouldn't save progress at all. The Neo Geo AES, released in 1990 by SNK, was the first video game console able to use a memory card. AES memory cards were also compatible with Neo-Geo MVS arcade cabinets, allowing players to migrate saves between home and arcade systems and vice versa.[12] Memory cards became commonplace when home consoles moved to read-only optical discs for storing the game program, beginning with systems such as the TurboGrafx-CD and Sega-CD.

Until the sixth generation of video game consoles, memory cards were based on proprietary formats; later systems have used established industry hardware formats for memory cards, such as FAT32.

Home consoles now commonly use hard disk drive storage for saved games and allow the use of generic USB flash drives or other card formats via a memory card reader to transport game saves and other game information, along with cloud storage saving, though most portable gaming systems still rely on custom memory cartridges to store program data, due to their low power consumption, smaller physical size and reduced mechanical complexity.

For example, the Xbox 360 allowed the user to operate proprietary memory cards in models produced until 2010 and a special hard disk to store data. Later, Microsoft allowed user to connect USB flash drives and USB HDDs to the system. The console initially allowed up to 16GB on any USB devices but further updates have removed this limit. Last models of the system (S, 2010-2013 and E, 2013-2016) no longer have slots for the memory cards.

Due to very high volumes of data, the new Xbox Series X system will (in addition to its internal 1TB SSD) have an ability to connect a special memory card which is a specialized very high speed SSD. Users are still allowed to connect USB storage devices but new Series X games cannot be run from a USB storage disk.

• Comparison of memory cards
• Hot swapping