Types Of Memory Cards for Computer, Mobile Phones and Digital Camera

1.PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) - The PCMCIA standard has been expanded several times and are suitable for many types of devices. There are three types of PCMCIA cards-

Type I cards can be up to 3.3 mm thick, and are used primarily for adding additional ROM or RAM to a computer.

Type II cards can be up to 5.5 mm thick. These cards are often used for modem and fax modem cards.

Type III cards can be up to 10.5 mm thick, which is sufficiently large for portable disk drives.

2.Compact Flash - Compact Flash is the de facto standard to flash memory Storage. It is used everywhere from digital cameras to MP3 players to embedded systems. There are two variants of Compact Flash: Type 1 & Type 2. CF Type 2 cards are a little bit thicker than CF type I Cards. Currently CF Type 2 cards house devices like Micro drive and WiFi network Card. CF cards are very robust and industrially proven to be reliable.

3.Secure Digital card - Secure Digital card is basically the second generation Multimedia Card. They are exactly the same as MMC physically, other than the extra locking switch on the SD Card. The locking switch prevents data from being read, written, and deleted from the storage card. A SD Card device can also read and write MMC.

mini Secure Digital card -Recently a new smaller SD Card has emerged on the market. It is called the mini SD Card. The card is originally intended for use in mobile phones and miniature electronics, such as MP3 players.

micro Secure Digital card - The micro SD Card is even smaller than the miniSD Card. The micro SD Card is designed for use in cellular phones and small mobile devices. The micro SD Card can accessed in a SD Card slot via an adapter.

4.Multimedia Card - The Multimedia Card (MMC) standard was introduced by SanDisk and Siemens in 1997. MMC is smaller but slightly thicker than the Smart Media cards. Its interface pins are on its backside and lay similarly to Memory Stick. The card itself is 32 mm x 24 mm x 1.4mm and is often used in place of the SD card. Transfer speeds of a MMC is around 2.5MB/s and they can often be used in SD Card readers.

5. Sony Memory Sticks - Sony Memory Sticks are light, compact and designed for a wide variety of devices including digital cameras, recorders, and more. Memory Stick uses a serial interface to transfer data between the host device and card.

        Memory Stick PRO - Sony Memory Stick PRO is the new Standard to eliminate the 128 MB limitation. Currently, Memory Stick PRO is available up to 1 GB. Memory Stick PRO will not work in devices that only support the standard Memory Stick. But Memory Stick PRO devices are compatible with the original Memory Stick. Today, all 128MB, and under, cards are Memory Stick, while all larger cards are Memory Stick PRO.

         Memory Stick Duo - Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Pro Duo are basically smaller versions of the Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro. The Duo has pin-to-pin compatibility with its older and larger Memory Stick sibling.

6. Smart Media - Introduced by Toshiba in 1995 . Smart Media card is the first challenger to the flash memory market. It is smaller and thinner than the CF cards. It also has contact pins directly on the surface of the card.

7. xD-Picture Card - xD-Picture Card is a contender invented and promoted by Olympus and Fuji. the xD-Picture Card is a type of removable flash memory designed for use in digital cameras. The xD is ultra-compact with its size of 20mm x 25mm x 1.7mm.







Related Terms:
      Types Of Computer Memory Cards
      Digital Camera Memory Cards
      Mobile Phones Memory Cards
      

What is Computer Memory Card?

A memory card or flash card is an electronic flash memory data storage device used for storing digital contents. They are commonly used in many electronic devices, including digital cameras, mobile phones, laptop computers, MP3 players, and video game consoles. They are small, re-recordable, and they can retain data without power.





Related Terms:
Computer Memory Card
Mobile Phone Memory Card
Digital Camera Memory Cards

What is Computer Network Card?

A network card is an expansion card which installs into a computer and enables that computer to physically connect to a local area network. The most common form of network card in current use is the Ethernet Card. Other types of network cards include wireless network cards and Token Ring network cards. Ethernet network cards most often use RJ-45 jacks. Wireless network cards usually have no external connections other than a possible antenna jack. Other terms for network card include network adapter, network interface card and NIC.

A network interface controller (NIC) is a hardware device that handles an interface to a computer network and allows a network capable device to access that network. The NIC has a ROM chip that contains a unique number. The MAC address burned into it. The MAC address identifies the device uniquely on the LAN.







Related Keywords:
          Using Network Cards in Computers
          Network Cards in Laptops
          Install Network Cards In Computer
          Local Area Network (LAN) Network Cards

Components Of Video Cards

Graphics processing unit (GPU)
Video BIOS
Video memory
RAMDAC
Cooling devices
Power demand
Video Graphics Array (VGA)
Digital Visual Interface (DVI)
Video In Video Out (VIVO)
High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI)
Display Port




Graphics processing unit (GPU) - A GPU is a dedicated processor optimized for accelerating graphics. The processor is designed specifically to perform floating-point calculations, which are fundamental to 3D graphics rendering. The main attributes of the GPU are the core clock frequency, which typically ranges from 250 MHz to 4 GHz and the number of pipelines, which translate a 3D image characterized by vertices and lines into a 2D image formed by pixels.

Video BIOS - The video BIOS or firmware contains the basic program that governs the video card's operations and provides the instructions that allow the computer and software to interact with the card.

Video memory - Since video memory needs to be accessed by the GPU and the display circuitry, it often uses special high speed or multi-port memory, such as VRAM, WRAM, SGRAM, etc.

RAMDAC - RAMDAC (Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter) converts digital signals to analog signals for use by a computer display that uses analog inputs such as CRT displays. Depending on the number of bits used and the RAMDAC data transfer rate, the converter will be able to support different computer display refresh rates.

Cooling devices - Video cards may use a lot of electricity, which is converted into heat. If the heat isn't dissipated, the video card could overheat and be damaged. Cooling devices are incorporated to transfer the heat elsewhere.

Power demand - As the processing power of video cards has increased, so has their demand for electrical power. Present fast video cards tend to consume a great deal of power. While CPU and power supply makers have recently moved toward higher efficiency, power demands of GPUs have continued to rise, so the video card may be the biggest electricity user in a computer.

OutPut Ports:

The most common connection systems between the video card and the computer display are:

1.Video Graphics Array (VGA) Analog-based standard adopted in the late 1980s designed for CRT displays. Some problems of this standard are electrical noise, image distortion and sampling error evaluating pixels.

2.Digital Visual Interface (DVI): Digital-based standard designed for displays such as flat-panel displays (LCDs, plasma screens, wide High-definition television displays) and video projectors. It avoids image distortion and electrical noise, corresponding each pixel from the computer to a display pixel, using its native resolution.


3.Video In Video Out (VIVO) includes to allow the connection with televisions, DVD players, video recorders and video game consoles. 


4.High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI): An advanced digital audio/video interconnect released in 2003, and is commonly used to connect game consoles and DVD players to a display. HDMI supports copy protection through HDCP. 


5.Display Port: An advanced license and royalty-free digital audio/video interconnect released in 2007. Display Port intends to replace VGA and DVI for connecting a display to a computer.





Incoming Search Terms:
       Graphics processing unit (GPU)
       Video BIOS
       Video memory
       RAMDAC
       Cooling devices
       Power demand
       Video Graphics Array (VGA)
       Digital Visual Interface (DVI)
       Video In Video Out (VIVO)
       High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI)
       Display Port

Video Card

The video card is an expansion card that allows the computer to send graphical information to a video display device such as a monitor or projector. The Video Card is also known as graphics card, graphics adapter, video adapter. Each motherboard supports only a limited range of video card formats. Some video cards offer added functions, such as video capture, TV tuner adapter, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 decoding, FireWire, light pen, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors.

What Is Ethernet?

         Ethernet is the most widely-installed local area network technology. Specified in a standard, IEEE 802.3, Ethernet was originally developed by Xerox from an earlier specification called Aloha net (for the Palo Alto Research Center Aloha network) and then developed further by Xerox, DEC, and Intel. An Ethernet LAN typically uses coaxial cable or special grades of twisted pair wires. Ethernet is also used in wireless LANs. The most commonly installed Ethernet systems are called 10BASE-T and provide transmission speeds up to 10 Mbps. Devices are connected to the cable and compete for access using a Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) protocol.

          Fast Ethernet or 100BASE-T provides transmission speeds up to 100 megabits per second and is typically used for LAN backbone systems, supporting workstations with 10BASE-T cards. Gigabit Ethernet provides an even higher level of backbone support at 1000 megabits per second (1 gigabit or 1 billion bits per second). 10-Gigabit Ethernet provides up to 10 billion bits per second.






Related Search Terms:
          What is Ethernet
          Types Of Ethernet Cards
          Standard IEEE 802.3 Ethernet
          Palo Alto Research Center Aloha network