New 300Mbytes/second SD Card Format

The SD Association, which develops standards for SD memory cards, has announced a new dual-row pin SD card design that can achieve theoretical bus interface speeds of up to 300Mbytes/second, which is more than enough for 4K cinema applications. (By comparison, the fastest data transfer speed available with the current single-row design, UHS, is 104Mbytes/second.) The new design is backward compatible with devices that can use existing SD, SDHC and SDXC cards (although devices will have to support the dual-row connector in order to take advantage of the full speed of the new cards), and will be available in both full-size and micro formats. The new interface will be formally defined in the SD 4.0 specification, which the SD Association expects to release in early 2011.