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SanDisk Ultra II Cards Win European Memory Card of the Year 2004-2005

According to a press release published by the Photo Imaging Council of Australia (PICA) SanDisk has picked up a prestigious award from the European Imaging & Sounds Association (EISA). The SanDisk Ultra II line of high-speed storage cards have been named as the European Memory Card of the Year 2004-2005. The SanDisk Ultra II cards recently won a TIPA award as well, making this the second prestigious European award earned for the Ultra II cards’ speed and performance.

SanDisk Ultra II cards are available widely in consumer electronics and professional photography stores worldwide, and are available in the following formats and capacities:

o CompactFlash Ultra II: 256MB to 2GB
o Memory Stick PRO Ultra II: 256MB to 1GB
o SD Ultra II: 256 and 512MB

Reduced Sized MultiMedia Card (RS-MMC) : Another new memory card

SANDISK SUPPLIES REDUCED SIZE MULTIMEDIACARDS (RSMMC) FOR SIEMENS S65 FULL-FEATURED MOBILE PHONE

Sunnyvale, CA, August 19, 2004 - SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today announced that it will supply Siemens Information and Communication Mobile of Germany, the world's fourth largest producer of mobile phones, with Reduced Size MultiMediaCards (RS-MMC) for sale with the new high-performance Siemens S65 handset.

At roughly half the size of a postage stamp, the SanDisk RS-MMC is one of the world's smallest flash memory form factors. A 32-megabyte RS-MMC will be bundled with sales of the Siemens mobile phones, which are expected to reach dealers in Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America by October 1, 2004.

"This represents a significant OEM design win for the RS-MMC flash memory form factor, which we recently introduced, and we're pleased that Siemens has decided to include our cards with this exciting new mobile phone," said Heinz H. Schulte, sales director for the mobile phone market segment in Europe. "The tiny size of the RS-MMC, coupled with its high capacity for storage, is well-suited to the demands of this advanced, full-featured handset." Siemens said that the S65 is the company's first mobile phone to have an integrated 1.3-megapixel still and video camera.Unveiled in March at the CeBIT 2004 trade show in Hannover, Germany, the Siemens S65 also comes with a full suite of business software, a large 65k TFT color screen, a speakerphone, Bluetooth wireless communication, instant messaging, and synchronization with Microsoft Outlook and IBM's Lotus Notes. The video recorder films at 15 frames per second and the video clips can be e-mailed, played back or stored on the RS-MMC card.

In late July, as part of its mobile products line, SanDisk began shipping retail versions of the RS-MMC in Europe and Asia. The card includes an extender, which allows it to adapt to a full-sized MultiMediaCard/Secure Digital slot. SanDisk's RS-MMC, measuring 24 by 18 by 1.4 mm, is about half the size of a standard MultiMediaCard. The company also offers 64MB and 128MB capacities for RS-MMC.

The market for mobile phones with flash memory card slots is projected to increase rapidly. Market research firm IDC is predicting that manufacturers will sell over 157 million such phones by the end of this year, and that by 2005 the number will reach 246 million. According to a report from Gartner, Inc., worldwide sales of all types of mobile phones totaled 153 million units for the first quarter of 2004, representing a record 34 percent increase over the first quarter of 2003. This robust market is prompting Gartner to predict that mobile phone sales will exceed 600 million units for 2004.

SanDisk, the world's largest supplier of flash memory data storage card products, designs, manufactures and markets industry-standard, solid-state data, digital imaging and audio storage products using its patented, high density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is based in Sunnyvale, CA.

Memory Card Torture Test

An interesting article posted by BBC News talks about five different memory card formats (CompactFlash, Secure Digital, xD, Memory Stick and Smartmedia) being put through a torture test. "They were dipped into cola, put through a washing machine, dunked in coffee, trampled by a skateboard, run over by a child's toy car and given to a six-year-old boy to destroy. Perhaps surprisingly, all the cards survived these six tests."

Taking it to the next level of shock therapy though, the article says, "Most of them did fail to get through two additional tests - being smashed by a sledgehammer and being nailed to a tree. Even then, data experts Ontrack Data Recovery were able to retrieve photos from the xD and Smartmedia cards."

It's good to know that the storage media we're using in our cameras have been designed to be robust.