Higher speed CF around the corner?

Taiwanese manufacturer Apacer Technology in conjunction with SST of Sunnyvale, California have announced a CompactFlash card designed specifically to improve write performance. The new card is claimed to have a write speed of up to 4 MB/sec, it achieves this by multi-tasking the write process to four commands at a time. The card will be priced higher than normal cards and we have yet to see if its performance lives up to its billing. Remember that Compact Flash write performance is heavily dependent on the throughput of the digital camera's CPU and CF interface, this new card would probably only be useful for high-end D-SLR users.

Click here for examples of CF performance with different digital cameras

Press Release:

Apacer announces the world’s fastest Speedy CompactFlash memory card

New generation CompactFlash card solution from SST enables data transfer at up to three times the speed of current memory cards

[July 15, 2002, Taipei] Apacer Technology, one of the world’s leading suppliers of digital storage solutions and memory modules, today announced the world’s fastest Speedy CompactFlash memory card. Three times faster than existing solutions, Apacer’s new memory cards will remove one of the few frustrations left to digital camera users taking high-resolution images and allow them to fully exploit and enjoy the advantages that innovative memory solutions can bring to everyday life.

Following the rapid increase in the popularity of digital-camera use over the last two years, the demand for fast memory has been rapidly climbing. Apart from competitive pricing, users have also begun to value reliable quality and high-speed access. “SST is a leader in the development of core logic for high speed Flash memory. With SST’s experience in ATA Flash disk controller technology and Apacer’s expertise in developing memory applications, we believe that the release of this new range of high-speed Flash memory solutions will exactly match demands coming from the market,” said Apacer vice-president Lawrence Lo.

The Apacer Speedy CompactFlash memory cards adopt a new CompactFlash card solution from SST that employs unique multi-tasking technology and this allows the memory to process up to four commands at a time. With a maximum sustained write speed of 4MB/s, Apacer’s new Speedy CompactFlash offers access speeds over three times faster than the 1.2MB/s offered by existing solutions. Not only does this mean less waiting between shots, a common complaint with current solutions, but it also means less time spent copying images onto a desktop PC or other device.

“Our long-term goal in providing ATA Flash disk controllers is to open the way into the world’s Internet appliances (IA), industrial PC (IPC) and consumer electronics with memory offering maximum performance,” said Samuel Nakhimovsky, product marketing manager, subsystem products, SST.

Using the same ATA Flash disk controller technology, Apacer and SST will launch ATA Disk Chip (ADC) and ATA Disk Module (ADM) solutions with the same high-speed read and write capabilities. In client systems such as thin clients, terminal PCs and set-top boxes, the performance boost provided by an ADC/ADM solution offering read capabilities of 5MB/s will be obvious to users as soon as they turn the system on. Whether they are loading the operating system or running a software application, users will no longer have to waste so much time waiting for things to happen.