The Association’s first-ever appearance at Computex included sponsorship of a Partner Pavilion. This was followed by a well-attended Plug Fest, testing compatibility between cards and hosts from various vendors.

This Plug Fest, the second in a series sponsored by the MMCA’s Marketing and Compliance Committees, brought together over 55 manufacturers.
Using a variety of products, including full-size and reduced-size cards and host devices, participants tested each other’s products for compatibility in private sessions. The event represented the first appearance of new MMC specification Ver. 4.0 devices, and turnout exceeded the first Plug Fest in Seoul, South Korea last November.

“As our membership grows, and more exciting new products come to market, these events are increasingly important both to card and host manufacturers, and especially to consumers who want assurance of product compatibility,” said Victor Tsai, Market Development Manager at Renesas Technology America, Inc., and MMCA Marketing Committee Vice-Chair.

The week before Plug Fest, the MMCA sponsored a Partner Pavilion at Computex Taipei 2004. This year’s was the largest-ever Computex with over 100,000 attendees. Significant new products, including a 512MB reduced-size MMC, were announced at the show by different member companies. A wide variety of cell phones and digital cameras were also displayed in the pavilion, and eight member firms had kiosks to show their products, including: Billionton Systems, Infineon, Kingmax, Lead Data, OTI, PDC, Silicon Motion and Skymedi.

According to Gen Shueh, Chief Strategy Officer of PDC and MMCA Marketing Committee Co-Chair, “We’re seeing a lot of interest in the MultiMediaCard specification from companies in different industries, and many have already become MMCA members. In addition, there’s been tremendous membership growth from the Greater China Region in the half year, and we expect it to continue this year.”

MMCA Board Chair Yves Leonard says, “These events, representing our largest-ever turnout for a Plug Fest and the strong member response at Computex, are further signs of the growing momentum behind MMCs, in Asia as well as Europe and the US.”

About MultiMediaCards

MultiMediaCards (MMCs) are the small, removable memory cards used increasingly in mobile phones and digital cameras to store music, games, address books and photos, and support numerous applications to come – e.g., m-commerce and digital content protected by digital rights management (DRM).

MMCs have been adopted by four of the top five mobile phone manufacturers, and are expected to have the fastest growth among the various memory card formats in that market. MMCs are based on the MultiMediaCard Association (MMCA) open standard, and the Association charges no royalty fees.

The newly adopted MMC standard ver. 4.0 is the most advanced memory card standard available today, offering the highest transfer speeds (52MB/sec), 1.8V and 3/3.3V dual-voltage operation, and flexible multiple bus widths (x1, x4 and x8 bit). The new specification is backward compatible with previous versions, thus bridging the mobile storage applications of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

MMCs use flash memory technology for rewritable data storage, and flash or ROM technology for read-only applications. With storage capacities of 1 Gbyte (approximately 640,000 book pages) and higher, the cards are compatible with products from hundreds of the world’s leading consumer electronics firms, including Canon, Casio, Eastman Kodak, Hewlett Packard, Hitachi, JVC, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sanyo, Siemens and many others.

About The MMCA (MultiMediaCard Association – www.mmca.org)

The MMCA is the open standard memory card organization, promoting worldwide adoption of a postage-stamp size, removable storage card designed especially for mobile phones and digital imaging. Founded in 1998 with 14 companies, the MMCA has grown rapidly and now has over 160 members worldwide, representing all branches of mobile electronic applications, including semiconductor suppliers, software vendors and manufacturers of low power devices for storing and retrieving digital information.

The MMCA developed and regulates open industry standards that define all types of MultiMediaCards, ensuring full interoperability. The organization charges no royalties for using the membership-driven standard, although a nominal license fee is included in the membership dues. Specifications are easily available from the organization’s website. MMCA headquarters are located at PO Box 2012, Cupertino, CA 95015-2012. More information is at www.mmca.org.

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