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SanDisk demonstrated the then new SmartMedia flash memory format to me during a meeting back in 1997. The now dated medium provided only a few megabytes of storage—at the time a good amount of memory—for the fledgling digital camera market.

Fast forward to 2004:

Now you've got numerous types of removable flash memory at previously undreamed of capacities. At the CTIA fall conference in San Francisco this week, SanDisk took these cards a significant step further with the introduction of models twice as large as previous editions. The company also introduced a couple of faster and smaller ways to access content from these tiny devices.

Cards
SanDisk will now offer Memory Stick PRO at 4GB ($400), Memory Stick PRO Duo—half the size of standard Memory Sticks—at 1GB ($115), and postage stamp-sized Secure Digital cards at 2GB ($200) capacities. The flash memory vendor also doubled its tiny miniSD and RS-MMC cards to 512MB a piece for $70 each.

Perhaps most impressively, the company now offers its smallest memory card format of all, TransFlash (see top image), as a 256MB module. TransFlash, used by some phone manufacturers—such as Motorola with its V710 clamshell mobile handset—measures only 15 x 11 x 1 mm, which makes it roughly the size of a fingernail.


TransFlash

SanDisk expects about 40 handset models to include TranSFlash support in 2005.

Nelson Chan, an Executive VP & General Manager at SanDisk, asserted that "these new capacity points will allow our customers who need maximum storage in their digital cameras, mobile phones and other electronic devices to use these cards to store as many digital pictures, songs and other personal data as they desire."

Of course, the company has no plans to stop with these capacities, especially since mobile handsets continue to make better use of additional memory through higher speed networks and more capable software and hardware platforms. Chan said, "We expect to continue to increase capacities for these cards as storage intensive mobile phone applications grow in popularity.

To help keep up with the demand of delivering one million flash memory cards a week and doubling sales since last year, a SanDisk representative told PDAStreet at CTIA that the company will open a new facility in Japan with partner Toshiba, which happens to be the largest flash memory producer in the world.

Readers
Supporting all of these new cards is two Hi-Speed USB 2.0 MobileMate readers. Similar to USB memory keys, these new devices include a 5-in-1 reader that supports Secure Digital, MiniSD, MultiMediaCard, RS-MMC and TransFlash, as well as a 4-in-1 reader with slots for Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick PRO Duo cards.

You simply plug the cards into the readers and then the readers into a USB port to exchange content. Both readers go for $20 each.