SanDisk, Sony pitch über CompactFlash spec
PCIe in, ATA out
Nikon, SanDisk and Sony want to revive the CompactFlash card as the default memory card technology for pro users.
CompactFlash, once found on almost every high-end camera, has faded from the scene somewhat, primarily thanks to the more convenient - read 'smaller' - SD card standard, which is now ubiquitous. CF lives on in some top-of-the-line kit, but it's largely gone from the mainstream.
Yet, this month the CompactFlash Association (CFA) released version 6.0 of the CF spec, taking the interface speed to 167MB/s - equivalent to 1114x speed - thanks to support for Ultra DMA Mode 7.
Building on CF 5.0, which was only released in February, CF 6.0 adds support for the Trim command - handy for better write performance over time - and a block erase command.
Yet this isn't enough for Nikon, SanDisk and Sony, who have submitted a spec for a future CF card that uses PCI Express instead of parallel ATA for the memory card's bus.
The upshot, they say, is a bus speed capable of reaching 500MB/s - sufficient for 1920 x 1080 at 30f/s and 40-bit colour, and effectively 3333x speed - but it's likely to be incompatible with the current version, a concern skated over by the three in their announcement.
In fact, about all the suggested "new card format" has in common with CF 6.0 is the form-factor and, the participants hope, CompactFlash branding.
The new spec calls for the maximum supported capacity to be upped to 2TB. The trio also talked more nebulously of a "power scaling system to extend battery life". ®
COMMENTS
pcie
I suspect they chose PCIe for the same reason that CF was PATA - this is the interface on the side of laptops and is already a standard. Old laptops had pcmcia which effectively is a longer CF slot, or PATA interface. newer latops have the thinner PCIe slot and I would imagine the form factor will follow this thinner but still larger than SD interface.
Agreed
"Certainly this sounds nothing like CF and, if it's completely incompatible, then why bother with the current form factor?"
Agreed! Just use the PCIe bus spec and call it CompactFlashHD (CFHD) and move on with life.
Futrure Photography
I can easily see that in a future not far away new still cameras will no longer 'technically exist' as it'll actually take 10fps of 25MB per frame with one shutter press and the camera simply selects which of the resultant photos is the best one.
Already they have cameras that you don't need to focus, you select the focal length after the photo is taken.
Our kids will be baffled by our old ways don't you think?
"at the moment"
"At 300MBps it's plenty fast enough for anything around at the moment"
Yes, but this is for a storage card to be used years from now, where 300MB/s might seem a bit slow - recording 4K raw video, for instance.
Too many formats
CF SD at least 3 MS
Too confusing
I replaced my MiniDV camera (with full size MS) and the replacement HDV uses the min MS, the one in my daughters phone is a micro MS
