CFA To Use PCI Express to Make 500 MB/s Memory Cards

It seems that the CompactFlash Association has decided to start moving faster in development of new, high-speed memory cards, so it established a new group meant to develop a new format, one that will be both better and significantly different from the current one.

Makers of storage solutions have been releasing memory cards of all types left and right, but the CompactFlash cards still mostly lead in terms of performance.

Of course, this leadership cannot be held onto without foresighted planning on the part of the CompactFlash Association.

This foresight has now taken the form of a new working group that will be tasked with developing the newest CF card format.

The companies set to develop the standard are SanDisk, Sony and Nikon, who were quite quick in offering a proposal.

Said proposal will 'addresses the future requirements of professional photography and video markets' and revolves around the use of a new interface.

Current CompactFlash cards boast the PATA interface, but the new project will switch to PCI Express.

There are two main assets that the new memory cards are expected to have and which will practically place them on a completely different level.

For one, they will be able to perform data transfers at speeds of up to 500 MB/s, which mostly means they will be faster than most SATA SSDs today.

The second major feature is that they will supposedly be able to pack a storage capacity of as much as 2 TB.

The size will not be changed, but it is unclear if backwards compatibility will be possible to implement.

“Future professional photography and video applications will require memory cards with faster read/write speeds,” said Mr. Shigeto Kanda of Canon and the CFA chairman of the board.

“The development of a new high-performance card standard with a serial interface will meet the needs of the professional imaging industry for years to come and open the door for exciting new applications,” he added.