TOKYO -- Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., Sega Enterprises, Ltd., Olympus Optical Co., Ltd., Tokyo Electron Ltd. and Toshiba Corporation today announced the establishment of the Solid-State Floppy-Disk Cards (SSFDC) Forum to promote SSFDC as an industry standard for a super-small data storage medium. The Forum will provide manufacturers with opportunities for exchanging technical information required to develop SSFDC applications.

The founding meeting of the Forum was held today in Tokyo, targeting at potential Japanese manufacturers of SSFDC applications and its components. In addition to the Forum's founders, it garnered the support of 32 additional companies. Further meetings will be next held in major overseas markets.

The Forum will set up a number of working groups to promote SSFDC. Among these, a Technical Working Group and Promotion Working Group will work to assure compatibility among SSFDC-related products and to encourage widespread application of SSFDC.

SSFDC is a new kind of memory card that combines simple structure with small size. A card consists of NAND flash memory chip embedded in a thin card, only one third the size of a standard credit card. This simple design offers the most cost-efficient memory card available.

Small size, light weight, large volume and low cost all contribute to positioning SSFDC memory cards as a key storage device for mobile multimedia products. SSFDC is expected to become the storage medium of choice for portable information terminals, digital still cameras, voice recorders, personal digital assistants (PDA) and game machines.

37 companies have already announced their membership of the SSFDC Forum, among them:

A-Plus Corporation, Alps Electric Co., Ltd., AMP (Japan), Ltd., Cirrus Logic K.K., DDK Limited, Eastman Kodak Asia-Pacific Ltd., FDK Corporation, Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., Hagiwara Sys-Com Co., Ltd., Hirose Electric Co., Ltd., Hosiden Corporation, Intermartsystems, Inc., Japan Aviation Electronics Industry, Ltd., Kyocera Elco Co., Ltd., Matsushita Battery Industrial Co., Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., MINOLTA Co., Ltd., Misuzu Industries Corporation, Mitsubishi Plastic, Inc., Molex Japan Co., Ltd., Murata Mfg. Co., Ltd., National Semiconductor Japan Ltd., Nikon Corporation, Olympus Optical Co., Ltd., Ricoh Company, Ltd., Samsung Aerospace Industries, Ltd., Samsung Electronics Japan Co., Ltd., Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., Sega Enterprises, Ltd., Sony Corporation, System Craft Incorporation, TDK Corporation, Tokyo Electron Limited, Toshiba Corporation and Yamaichi Electronics Co., Ltd.

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Features of SSFDC

Main Specifications of SSFDC

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