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SanDisk Corporation today introduced the SanDisk miniSD card, a new thumbnail-sized flash memory card. The miniSD card was recently adopted by the SD Association as an ultra-small form factor extension to the Secure Digital card standard.

According to the company, the SanDisk miniSD card is targeted at the new generation of 2.5G and 3G mobile phones that offer storage-intensive features such as digital cameras, video capture, MP3 players, video games, personal information management (PIM), email and voicemail capabilities.

SandDisck said the miniSD card offers significant savings in card area and volume, two critical design parameters for the new generation of increasingly miniaturized mobile phones. Compared to standard SD cards, the miniSD card saves more than 40% of the printed circuit board area and more than 60% of the volume required to support the card in a portable device.

The company will offer the card in memory capacities in the new format at 16, 32, 64, 128 and 256 megabytes. SanDisk said it will initially sell the miniSD card through its Japanese retail distribution channels starting in Q2 with worldwide expansion planned in the second half of the year. The SanDisk-branded miniSD cards will be packaged with a full-sized SD adapter, allowing users to use their miniSD card in both miniSD slots and regular SD slot devices

Suggested retail pricing for the miniSD plus SD adapter will be 3,480 yen (US$29) for the 32MB card.

In related news, SanDisk today introduced 1 gigabyte and 512 megabyte SD Cards. The 1GB SD card quadruples the current capacity of SanDisk SD cards.