Updated April 15, 2023
Introduction to Memory Card
Memory Card can be defined as a portable electronic storage device that falls under the category of the flash type of storage devices. This device has become a widespread storage method used to match with the modern-day technological evolution. It can contain data of any format and type, like videos, pictures, audio, executable files, etc. It is known to be faster and handy in nature, while being cheaper, which makes them the most preferred devices compared to other portable flash memory units. Memory cards are most commonly used in other transferable devices like mobile phones, tablets, gaming console, cameras, laptops, and media players.
History of Memory Card
Memory cards were derived as a means to implement flash-supported technology. Fujio Masuokawas the technologist who created the first memory card for Toshiba in the year1980. It was then launched by the same organization to the commercial market, in the year 1987. It was initially used for personal computers, which then progressed further to become more portable and be used for various purposes. From the year 1994, a wide range of similar memory devices were invented, with lesser size, bigger capacity, and quality of accessing speed each time. A few such latest inventions were CompactFlash, SmartMedia, and Miniature Card.
As the size of the devices reduced, the size of memory cards started getting reduced, in order to make it compatible with the size of the latest personal devices. SmartMedia was the most trending brand for memory card purposes up until 2004, whereas in 2005 the market moved to the hands of SD/ MMC, as they had a diverse selection of portable devices that can be connected to other personal devices. All these memory cards are still in use, in accordance to the application types and device configurations, where the latest smaller high-performance cards are installed in cameras & mobile phones and the older PC cards are used for industrial purposes like mainframe server handles. In terms of expenses, the higher the memory capacity, the higher will be the cost of the memory card.
How Does Memory Card Work?
The latest Memory card used in mobile devices and cameras is categorized to be a Solid-state device, which as the name says is a steady device without any moving parts inside it. When compared to other memory storage devices that were invented before memory cards, it makes the card operation less complicated and increased speed with performance along with it. The internal setup of the memory cards consists of a circuit system, which can carry out the flash memory storage and processing with higher efficiency.
It is an EEPROM (Electronically Erasable programmable read-only memory) chip card, which will have two transistors inside. These transistors are placed in the intersection with one another, to form a grid-like structure with multiple columns and rows. The transistors are kept apart from one another with the help of a thin oxide film, in which one plays the role of a floating gate and the other plays the role of a control gate. For a successful operation, the floating gate circuit is connected to the rows of the control gate circuit, and these linked cells will hold the value 1.
1. Memory Card Components
Memory card components, with which the memory card’s internal circuits constructed, are a couple of transistors and an oxide film. Using these components, two kinds of circuits are generated, namely the floating circuit and the control circuit, by placing the transistors to form a junction and derive a network with a number of rows and columns. The next important component of this device is the oxide separation sheet that should be placed in between both the circuits and for linking the processing flow between the circuits.
2. Uses of Memory Card
The below are various uses of memory cards in general,
- Mobile phones: In Mobile phones and other PDA devices, memory cards can be used for a created an expandable memory storage facility. Normally, the device itself comes with a minimum memory that can be used for data storage and for accommodating the device’s processing activities. Since mobile devices come with a lot of features these days, like camera, SMS, MMS, video recording, data sharing, etc., the inbuilt memory will not be sufficient. Hence the devices are provided with an additional memory card slot, where the user can install their own card with the desired memory capacity as and when required.
- Digital Cameras: Digital Cameras come with plenty of digitally superior specifications, with picture capturing, video recording, motion picture creation, data sharing features. When the device comes with several advanced features like this, it will require high-speed memory units to capture all the newly generated data like photos and videos. One has to keep track of the amount of memory used and the amount of balance left for further usage so that they can transfer the contents to a personal or professional computer system.
- Personal Computer/ Laptop: Memory cards in personal computers and laptops can be used for managing the system memory efficiently, as the computer’s own memory will have a certain capacity. Adding a new memory card helps in developing the overall storage space of the computer system efficiently, and with considerable greater performance rates. Apart from transferring the extra data from the memory card to the system memory, the storage can also be used for transferring the data another way around. That is, for transferring data from card to the system memory and from the system memory to the card as well. This leads to a multi-purpose application of memory card devices, and as a resourceful method for managing data across devices.
Conclusion
Memory cards provide greater convenience for the areas where data management and storage capacity handling is required to be handled amongst various personal & professional devices on a daily basis. A few such industries where the card is used frequently are educational industries like academic & certification course management, media domains like photography & videography, office management like documentation & shipping, etc.
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