SD EXPRESS DELIVERS NEW GIGABYTE SPEEDS FOR SD MEMORY CARDSCards reach maximum 4GB/sec transfer rate with PCIe® 4.0 architecture
SAN RAMON, CALIF— May 19, 2020 — The SD Association announced today the SD
8.0 Specification for SD Express memory cards receives even faster transfer speeds byusing the popular PCI Express® (PCIe®) 4.0 specification delivering a maximum ofnearly 4 gigabytes per second (GB/s) data transfer rate. These full sized cards continue
to use the NVMe Express™ (NVMe™) upper layer protocol enabling advanced memory
access mechanism. As always SD Express memory cards using SD 8.0 specification
maintain backward compatibility.
“SD Express’ use of even faster PCIe and NVMe architectures to deliver faster transferspeeds creates more opportunities for devices to use SD memory cards,” said Mats
Larsson, Senior Market Analyst at Futuresource. “This combination of trusted and wellknown technologies makes it easier for future product designs to leverage the benefitsof removable storage in new ways.”
SD Express gigabyte speeds bring new storage opportunities for devices withdemanding performance levels, across a variety of industries. The cards can move large
amounts of data generated by data-intense wireless or wired communication, superslow motion video, RAW continuous burst mode 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 andautomotive to name a few. SD Express will be offered on SDHC, SDXC and SDUC
memory cards.
“By dramatically increasing the speeds for SD Express we’re giving device
manufacturers and system developers more storage choices,” said Hiroyuki Sakamoto,SDA president. “SD 8.0 may open even more opportunities for extra high performancesolutions using removable memory cards.”“PCI-SIG® is pleased to see that SDA is continuing to adopt even faster PCIetechnology configurations using PCIe 4.0 interface and dual lanes for one of the top
leading removable memory cards – SD,” said Al Yanes, PCI-SIG president andchairman. “PCIe specification conformance tests are available today by major test
vendors, offering a significant advantage for any new PCIe technology adopter.”“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 continuing the adoption of theNVMe base specification for their latest SD Express cards.”- more -SD Express uses the well-known PCIe 4.0 specification and the latest NVMespecification (up to version 1.4) defined by PCI-SIG and NVM Express, respectively. SD
8.0 specification provides two transfer speed options for SD Express memory card. The
two transfer speeds are accomplished by supporting either PCIe 3.0 x2 or PCIe 4.0 x1
architectures with up to ~2GB/s and with PCIe 4.0 x2 technology with up to 4GB/s. SD
Express cards offering PCIe 4.0 x1 architecture use the same form factor as defined forSD 7.0 specification cards with a second row of pins to deliver transfer speeds up to 2GB/s. SD Express cards supporting dual PCIe lanes (PCIe 3.0 x2 or PCIe 4.0 x2technologies) have three rows of pins.
SD Express memory card examples:

Pin layouts of SD Express memory cards using single or dual lane technology:

The SDA makes adoption of SD Express easy allowing companies to use existing test
equipment and saving in product development costs. The SD 8.0 specification
continues giving system developers access to PCIe and NVMe technologies, such as
Bus Mastering, Multi Queue (without locking mechanism) and Host Memory Buffer.
Two revised white papers, “SD Express Cards with PCIe and NVMe Interfaces,” and“SD Express and microSD Express Memory Cards: The Best Choice for Your Future
Product Designs” provide an in-depth look at the opportunities created by SD Express.
More information is available on our website.
Visit the SDA Virtual Tradeshow to learn more about SD Express solutions offered byour members.
- more -SD Association
The 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, digital
cameras 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 industry
standards. 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.
About NVM Express, Inc.
With more than 100 members, NVM Express is a non-profit organization focused on
enabling broad ecosystem adoption of high performance and low latency non-volatilememory (NVM) storage through a standards-based approach. The organization offers
an open collection of NVM Express (NVMe™) specifications and information to fully
expose the benefits of non-volatile memory in all types of computing environments frommobile to data center. NVMe-based specifications are designed from the ground up todeliver high bandwidth and low latency storage access for current and future NVM
technologies. For more information, visit http://www.nvmexpress.org.
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