SD EXPRESS – A REVOLUTIONARY INNOVATION FOR SD MEMORY CARDSSD Express integrates PCIe® and NVMe™ for up to 985 MB/sec transfer rate,
while keeping compatibility with existing billions SD hosts in the market
SHANGHAI — Mobile World Congress Booth N2.C40 — June 27, 2018 — The SD
Association announced today SD Express which adds the popular PCI Express® andNVMe™ interfaces to the legacy SD interface. The PCIe interface delivering a 985
megabytes per second (MB/s) maximum data transfer rate and the NVMe upper layer
protocol enables advanced memory access mechanism, enabling a new world ofopportunities for the popular SD memory card. In addition, the maximum storage
capacity in SD memory cards grows from 2TB with SDXC to 128 TB with the new SD
Ultra Capacity (SDUC) card. These innovations maintain the SDA’s commitment tobackward compatibility and are part of the new SD 7.0 specification.
“SD Express’ use of popular PCIe and NVMe interfaces to deliver faster transfer speeds
is a savvy choice since both protocols are widely used in the industry today and createsa compelling choice for devices of all types,” said Mats Larsson, Senior Market Analyst
at Futuresource. “The SD Association has a robust ecosystem with a strong history of
integrating SD innovations and has earned the trust of consumers around the world.”
SD Express keeps pace with growing performance levels of mobile and clientcomputing, imaging and automotive as they adopt faster communication and embedded
storage protocols designed to make processing data faster.
“With SD Express we’re offering an entirely new level of memory card with faster
protocols turning cards into a removable SSD,” said Hiroyuki Sakamoto, SDA president.
“SD 7.0 delivers revolutionary innovations to anticipate the needs of forthcoming
devices and content rich and speed hungry applications.”“PCI-SIG is pleased to have teamed with the SDA to collaborate on this innovation for
the world’s leading removable memory card – SD,” said Al Yanes, PCI-SIG presidentand chairman. “PCIe specification conformance tests are available today by major test
vendors, offering a significant advantage for any new PCIe adopter.”SD Express delivers speeds necessary to move large amounts of data generated bydata-intense wireless communication, super-slow motion video, RAW continuous burstmode and 8K video capture and playback, 360 degree cameras/videos, speed hungry
applications running on cards and mobile computing devices, ever evolving gaming
systems, multi-channel IoT devices and automotive to name a few. SD Express will be
initially offered on SDUC, SDXC and SDHC memory cards.

“NVMe is the industry-recognized performance SSD interface from the client to thedatacenter, shipping in millions of units,” said Amber Huffman, NVM Express™ Inc.
president. “Consumers will benefit by SD Association adopting the NVMe specification
for their new SD Express cards.”SD Express uses the well-known PCIe 3.0 specification and NVMe v1.3 protocols
defined by PCI-SIG® and NVM Express, respectively, on the second row of pins usedby UHS-II cards today. By relying on successful protocols already in the marketplace,the SDA gives the industry an advantage allowing utilization of existing test equipment
and saving in development process by usage of existing building blocks used in existing
designs. These cards also provide system developers new options offered by PCIe andNVMe capabilities, such as Bus Mastering, Multi Queue (without locking mechanism)and Host Memory Buffer. A new video explains more about SD Express.
The SDA released visual marks to denote SD Express and SDUC memory cards foreasy matching with devices’ recommendation for the best SD memory card for optimalperformance.
SDUC card examples:

SD Express memory card examples:

A new white paper, “SD Express Cards with PCIe and NVMe Interfaces,” provides moredetails on the new capabilities and features found in the SD 7.0 specification. Moreinformation is available on our website.

Find the SD Association at Mobile World Congress Shanghai in Booth N2.C40, June27-29, 2018, in the Shanghai New International Expo Centre (SNIEC) Shanghai, China.
SD AssociationThe SD Association is a global ecosystem of nearly 900 technology companies charged
with setting interoperable SD standards. The Association encourages the developmentof consumer electronic, wireless communication, digital imaging and networking
products that utilize market-leading SD technology. The SD standard is the number one
choice for consumers and has earned more than 80 percent of the memory card market
with its reliable interoperability and its easy-to-use format. Today, smart phones, tablets,drones, IoT devices, HDTVs, audio players, automotive systems, computers, digitalcameras and digital video cameras feature SD interoperability. For more information
about SDA or to join, please visit the Association’s website, https://www.sdcard.org.
SD Logos are trademarks licensed by SD-3C LLC.
PCI-SIG
PCI-SIG is the consortium that owns and manages PCI specifications as open industrystandards. The organization defines industry standard I/O (input/output) specifications
consistent with the needs of its members. Currently, PCI-SIG is comprised of nearly 800
industry-leading member companies. To learn more about PCI-SIG, and for a list of theBoard of Directors, visit www.pcisig.com. PCI Express® is a registered trademark ofPCI-SIG.
PCIe® - PCI Express, is a standard developed by PCI-SIG® and PCIe® is a trademark
owned by PCI-SIG®
NVMe™ - NVM ExpressTM, is a standard developed by NVM Express Inc. and NVMe™
is a trademark owned by NVM Express Inc.
###Media Contact
Kevin Schader
SD Association
1.925.275.6670
media@sdcard.org