Siemens and SanDisk Introduce the MultiMediaCard, the World's Smallest Solid State Storage Product for Portable Communications and Computing Devices.PALO ALTO Palo Alto, city, California Palo Alto (păl`ō ăl`tō), city (1990 pop. 55,900), Santa Clara co., W Calif.; inc. 1894. Although primarily residential, Palo Alto has aerospace, electronics, and advanced research industries. , Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 5, 1997-- Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, QUALCOMM and Siemens Private Communication Systems Announce Support For MMC See MultiMediaCard and Microsoft Management Console. And Intentions To Use It In Future Telecommunications Products SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :SNDK) and Siemens AG Siemens AG German electrical-equipment manufacturer. The first Siemens company, Siemens & Halske, was founded in Berlin in 1847 to build telegraph installations. today introduced the MultiMediaCard (MMC), the world's smallest solid state storage device. The MMC provides portable data and audio storage to the smallest advanced mobile phones and pagers currently being developed. With support already from leading telecommunications companies See telecom company. , SanDisk expects that the MMC will emerge as the portable storage standard for mobile phones, pagers and other handheld products. The MMC, which weighs less than two grams and is the size of a quarter coin, was designed to meet the unique requirements of the portable communications and computing markets. The necessity for the absolutely smallest physical size card and connector and easy interface to microcontrollers influenced the design of the simple seven pad card. SanDisk believes that the MMC will be the first storage card that optimally meets the mobile communications industry's requirements for small size and a simple high performance serial interface. With this new flash card technology, voice and e-mail messages, faxes, internet files and software applications all can be downloaded to the new card and accessed on mobile phones and pagers. The MMC announcement was made at joint SanDisk and Siemens press conferences in Palo Alto, CA and Munich, Germany. Both companies will be showing the MMC at the fall COMDEX The former, premier computer trade show in the U.S. Although it grew into an end user event, it was originally created for dealers and distributors (it was the COMputer Dealers EXposition). trade show in Las Vegas Las Vegas (läs vā`gəs), city (1990 pop. 258,295), seat of Clark co., S Nev.; inc. 1911. It is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. , NV, Nov. 17-21. (SanDisk booth, L-1204, Las Vegas Convention Center The Las Vegas Convention Center is owned and operated by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and is located in Clark County, Nevada. It is one of the largest Convention centers in the world. At the end of 2004, the center had 3. ; Siemens booth, S-4550, Sands Expo The Sands Expo and Convention Center, at 1.2 million square feet (110,000 m²), is the second largest convention center in the Las Vegas, Nevada area. It opened in 1990 across the street from the original Sands Hotel. and Convention Center.) Originally conceived by Siemens, the MultiMediaCard has been jointly developed and will be produced by SanDisk and Siemens in both flash and ROM versions. SanDisk, the world's leading supplier of flash data storage products, will manufacture the flash MMC while Siemens, one of the world's largest semiconductor companies, will produce the ROM-based MMC. Ulrich Hamann, president of Siemens' Chip Card and Security ICs Division, said: "SanDisk and Siemens have jointly developed the industry's ideal mass storage device for mobile applications. The MultiMediaCard, invented by Siemens, is an ultra-small form factor, low cost, low power and solid state solution which provides maximum reliability. "Siemens and SanDisk have met with leading manufacturers of mobile phones, pagers, mobile computing Using a computing device while in transit. Mobile computing implies wireless transmission, but wireless transmission does not necessarily imply mobile computing. Fixed wireless applications use satellites, radio systems and lasers to transmit between permanent objects such as buildings and other mobile electronic products who are enthusiastically endorsing the MultiMediaCard for its ease of integration and additional functionality." Eli Harari, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. and president of SanDisk, said: "SanDisk is committed to make MMC a broadly supported new industry standard. SanDisk's Israel Design Center, established specifically to develop MMC, has worked closely with Siemens and the world's leading telecommunications companies. Together, MMC has been defined for optimized storage of data, voice and applications software in the smallest form factor, consuming the lowest power and having a simple, low cost, high performance serial interface. "We believe that the broad adoption of MMC as the new storage card standard for intelligent communications devices Typically refers to a terminal used to send voice, video or text. Mobile phones, wireless PDAs and personal computers equipped with microphones, speakers and cameras are all considered communications devices. See modem. and other small form factor consumer electronic products will greatly accelerate the market development of smart phones, advanced pagers and consumer multimedia devices. We are extremely pleased with the commitment to MMC's standardization standardization In industry, the development and application of standards that make it possible to manufacture a large volume of interchangeable parts. Standardization may focus on engineering standards, such as properties of materials, fits and tolerances, and drafting from our partners participating today in this announcement." Nelson Chan, SanDisk vice president of marketing, explained, "One of the major benefits of the MMC is having a DOS/Windows file structure which makes it very user-friendly for desktop connectivity. The MMC will be a highly-supported product, and a number of customer development tools will be provided for the card. These tools will facilitate an easy design-in of MMC and will support downloading of new applications from third party software developers." Siemens Semiconductor originally conceived the MultiMediaCard as an extension of its growing worldwide line of Smart Card and Security Semiconductors. The MMC has a form factor of 32 millimeters (mm) high, 24 mm wide and 1.40 mm thick which represents approximately one-fifth the volume of a CompactFlash card. First samples will be available in January, 1998, initially in 2, 4, 8 and 10MB capacities. SanDisk expects to begin shipping those products in Q2, 1998. Higher capacity devices will be available in 1999. In high volume OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) The rebranding of equipment and selling it. The term initially referred to the company that made the products (the "original" manufacturer), but eventually became widely used to refer to the organization that buys the products and pricing, the 2MB MMC is priced at $26, the 4MB card at $32, the 8MB card at $43 and the 10MB card at $45. The MMC is being announced at this time so that developers of the numerous communications platforms currently on the drawing board and the corresponding third party application software developers worldwide can begin to plan on taking advantage of MMC storage in these new platforms. Flash is the ideal storage media for portable, battery-powered devices such as pagers and mobile feature phones. Because its power requirement is so low, flash extends the battery life of host systems. Flash is a non-volatile semiconductor technology meaning that no on-going power is required to maintain the stored data or audio after the host system is turned off. Flash is also very light, reusable, extremely durable and has no moving parts Moving parts are the components of a device that undergo continuous or frequent motion, most commonly rotation. "Parts" only include the mechanical components which does not include fuel, or any other gas or liquid. . Siemens Semiconductor developed a non-planar surface technology for the MMC, which results in only half the costs of a conventional ROM technology. Using its aggressive shrink roadmap, Siemens expects to be able to quadruple quad·ru·ple adj. 1. Consisting of four parts or members. 2. Four times as much in size, strength, number, or amount. 3. Music Having four beats to the measure. n. the memory capacity of the MMC in a one year cycle. The ultra high density cell design makes possible, for the first time, high capacity data storage for such applications as phone books and hotel lists, all on a small removable electronic medium bringing additional benefits into hand-held products. The 2MB and 8MB ROM will be available in Q1/98 with a 32MB product released in one year. Siemens' high density product roadmap includes the introduction of a 128MB MMC in the year 2001. Mats Lindoff, director of research and development, Ericsson Mobile Phones and Terminals in Europe, said: "The MultiMediaCard will win wide endorsement from manufacturers of mobile phones and pagers because of the increased functionality it brings to those products. The MMC is an ideal fit for future communications products that Ericsson expects to introduce to the market." "Motorola is pleased to support this initiative," said Jim Caile, corporate vice president, Motorola's Cellular Subscriber Sector. "We believe that MMC represents a removable media In computer storage, removable media refers to storage media which can be removed from its reader device, conferring portability on the data it carries. A removable drive is a reader device for such media. standard that will enable user friendly storage-intensive applications, in a manner similar to, and complementary with, other standardized standardized pertaining to data that have been submitted to standardization procedures. standardized morbidity rate see morbidity rate. standardized mortality rate see mortality rate. removable media, such as smart cards Example of widely used contactless smart cards are Hong Kong's Octopus card, Paris' Calypso/Navigo card and Lisbon' LisboaViva card, which predate the ISO/IEC 14443 standard. The following tables list smart cards used for public transportation and other electronic purse applications. and PC cards." Mikko Terho, vice president, wireless data, Nokia Mobile Phones, said: "The rapid growth of the telecommunications market will accelerate with the advent of next generation communications products. We expect that the MultiMediaCard will be an integral part of that industry growth because of its small form factor, versatility, low price and low power requirements." "QUALCOMM's digital CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) A method for transmitting simultaneous signals over a shared portion of the spectrum. The foremost application of CDMA is the digital cellular phone technology from QUALCOMM that operates in the 800 MHz band and 1.9 GHz PCS band. phones will benefit from the compact MultiMediaCard's low power requirements and mass storage capabilities to provide our customers with the most advanced technological developments in the industry," said Gina Lombardi, vice president of product development for QUALCOMM's Subscriber Products Division. Joachim Grollmann, director, Product Marketing Mobile Phones, Siemens Private Communication Systems, said: "The MMC is regarded to be an ideal mass storage medium for many interesting applications which can now be implemented with more advantages than ever before, especially in the area of mobile communication terminals." The MMC is housed in a simple plastic package with a seven pad serial interface. The high performance interface offers easy integration into various devices regardless of the microprocessor being used. In order to support a wide range of applications, the MMC interface protocol is designed for maximum scalability and configurability. All device and interface configuration data, such as maximum frequency, supported modes of operation, memory size and card ID, will be stored on the MMC. The write rate is 200KB per second (sustained) while the read rate is 2MB per second (sustained). SanDisk's popular, small-size CompactFlash storage card is being used in numerous mobile products where interoperability The capability of two or more hardware devices or two or more software routines to work harmoniously together. For example, in an Ethernet network, display adapters, hubs, switches and routers from different vendors must conform to the Ethernet standard and interoperate with each other. between portable products and desktop computers is critical. These portable products include digital cameras, a market where CompactFlash is emerging as the digital film standard. SanDisk believes that the MMC has the same potential to enable a whole new class of applications in the mobile telecommunications industry where extremely small size, low power and a low cost interface are critical requirements. With annual sales of approximately $63.6 billion in fiscal year 1995/96, Siemens is one of the world's largest electronic and electrical companies. Employing 379,000 people worldwide, the company concentrates its activities in the major business segments of energy, industry, communications, transportation, health care, information systems and electronic companies worldwide. Siemens Semiconductors Group is the second largest European semiconductor manufacturer and, in terms of technology, is one of the leading microelectronics companies worldwide. SanDisk Corporation designs, develops and markets flash memory data storage products used in a wide variety of electronic systems. The company has optimized its flash memory storage solution, known as "system flash," to address the needs of many emerging applications in the consumer electronics and industrial/communications markets. SanDisk's products include removable CompactFlash products and FlashDisk cards, and embedded Inserted into. See embedded system. FlashDrives and Flash ChipSet A group of chips designed to work as a unit to perform a function. For example, a modem chipset contains all the primary circuits for transmitting and receiving. A PC chipset provides the electronic interfaces between all subsystems (see PC chipset for illustration). products. -0- The matters discussed in this news release contain forward looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties as described under the caption "Risk Factors" in SanDisk's annual report on Form 10-K Form 10-K A report required by the SEC from exchange-listed companies that provides for annual disclosure of certain financial information. Form 10-K See 10-K. for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1996, and quarterly report on Form 10-Q Form 10-Q See 10-Q. for the fiscal quarter ended September 30, 1997, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. SanDisk assumes no obligation to update the information in this release. -0- Note to Editors: CompactFlash is a trademark of SanDisk Corporation. MultiMediaCard is a trademark of Siemens AG. -0- SanDisk's web site/home page address: http://www.sandisk.com Siemens web site/home page address: http://www.siemens.de CONTACT: SanDisk Nelson Chan, 408/542-0456 Bob Goligoski, 408/542-0463 |
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