Abstract:
Non-volatile data memory cards, flash drives and other memory devices are customized by manufacturing core memory units all the same and then covering them by outer skins which may be made to have different appearances and/or tactile characteristics. The skins are slid over the core memory units by hand from one end. End users of such memory devices may then select how they will look and feel by separately purchasing covers. Sellers of such memory devices may more easily control how their products look and feel.

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION 
     This is related to application Ser. No. 10/902,899, entitled “Packaged Memory Devices with Various Unique Physical Appearances,” filed concurrently herewith on Jul. 29, 2004 by Brewer et al., now publication no. 2006-0022055 A1. This related application is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety for all purposes by this reference. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention relates generally to the packaging of small, hand-held portable re-programmable non-volatile memory cards, flash drives and other such devices, and, more specifically, to the ability of an end user, seller or manufacturer to customize the outside surfaces of such devices. 
     Electronic non-volatile memory cards are used with personal computers, notebook computers, cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), digital still cameras, digital movie cameras, portable audio players and other host electronic devices for the storage of large amounts of data. Such cards usually contain a re-programmable non-volatile semiconductor memory cell array along with a controller that controls operation of the memory cell array and interfaces with a host to which the card connected. Flash memory cards have been commercially implemented according to a number of well-known standards. Popular types include CompactFlash (CF), MultiMediaCard (MMC), Secure Digital (SD), and Memory Stick, each of which is a sold by SanDisk Corporation, the assignee hereof. These portable, hand-held memory cards are small, the largest length being 50 mm., the largest width 36.4 mm. and the largest thickness being 3.3 mm. More recently, even smaller memory cards have come to the marketplace, including the miniSD and TransFlash cards of SanDisk Corporation. 
     Other small, hand-held re-programmable non-volatile memory devices have also been made to interface with a computer or other type of host by including a Universal Serial Bus (USB) connector plug. These are especially convenient since personal computers, PDAs and other types of hosts commonly include one or more USB connector receptacles but may not have a receptacle slot that accepts any of above identified standard memory cards. There are several USB flash drive products commercially available from SanDisk Corporation under its trademark Cruzer. USB flash drives are typically shaped differently than the memory cards described above but contain memory with the similar amounts of data storage capacity. The mid-sized Cruzer flash drives have an elongated shape with a length of about 70 mm., including the USB connector plug at one end, a width of about 18 mm. and thickness of about 8 mm. The trend is to make flash drives smaller. 
     The memory card and flash drive devices usually contain markings on an outside surface that typically give the storage capacity of the memory therein, the name and/or trademark of the seller and possibly other design elements that contribute to the overall appearance of the product. The texture and feel of these small hand-held devices can vary depending upon the nature of the outer material being used. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The ability is provided for manufacturers, sellers and/or end users of small non-volatile memory devices to customize the outside appearance and/or tactile feel of the devices. A common memory core unit is manufactured in large quantities without an outside cover. Covers (skins) are then separately manufactured with a physical configuration that allows them to be easily attached to core units by hand but in different versions having unique external characteristics such as different appearances and/or tactile feel. The covers with the desired external characteristics are then selected for attachment to the core memory units. The types of memory devices that may be configured in this manner include the memory cards and flash drives discussed above in the Background. 
     This core/cover configuration allows an end user of memory devices to select and customize his or her devices to have a desired look and feel. Memory core units and covers may be sold separately so that the end user may chose the cover for the device. Once purchased, the end user may also replace the initial cover with another cover having different external characteristics without having to replace the memory core unit, which by that time is likely storing data that the end user would not want to lose. Since the covers can be manufactured and sold for a small fraction of the cost of the core memory units, such exchanges are economically viable. 
     This core/cover configuration also allows original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and sellers of memory devices to end users to more easily control the outside appearance and feel of their products. Rather than the manufacturer of memory devices doing special manufacturing runs for individual OEMs and re-sellers in order to meet their requirements for individual looking products, large quantities of identical core memory units may be manufactured and then customized to the requirements of the OEMs and re-sellers by covering them with specially manufactured skins. Each cover can be manufactured to show the name, trademark, characteristics of the memory device and additional information specific to a particular OEM or re-seller. 
     Additional aspects, advantages, features and details of the present invention are included in the following description of exemplary examples thereof, which description should be taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  separately shows a flash memory drive and a cover that fits over the device; 
         FIG. 2  illustrates the flash memory drive and cover of  FIG. 1  fit together; 
         FIG. 3  separately shows a memory card and a cover that fits over the card; 
         FIG. 4  illustrates the memory card and cover of  FIG. 3  fit together; 
         FIG. 5  is a cross-sectional view of the combination of  FIG. 4 , taken at section  5 - 5  thereof; and 
         FIG. 6  is a flow diagram that shows an example use of multiple covers and associated memory devices. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS 
     A first embodiment is illustrated in  FIGS. 1 and 2 . A core memory unit  11  is in the form of a flash drive, such as that utilized in the SanDisk Cruzer flash drive products discussed in the Background. An elongated main body portion  15  includes one or more integrated circuit chips (not shown) providing an array of re-programmable non-volatile memory cells and a memory controller. A USB connector plug  17  extends from one end of the body  15 , having the same thickness but a smaller width. The smaller connector  17  is centered across the width of the body  15  in order to form shoulders  19  and  21  on the body  15 . The shoulders  19  and  21  are positioned on opposite sides of the connector  17  where it joins the body  15 . The memory system within the body  15  is connected to four contacts (not shown) of the USB connector  17 , two for power and two for the transfer of data into and out of the memory. These contacts are positioned on the top surface of a dielectric layer  23  within the connector plug  17 . An outside of the body  15  and connector  17  are preferably made of a single thin layer of metal, such as aluminum, that has been formed into the shape shown. Top and bottom surfaces extend in planes across both of the body  15  and connector  17 . An end  25  of the body  15  is preferably curved, as illustrated in  FIGS. 1 and 2 , but this end may alternatively be made straight, thereby resulting in the unit  11  being totally rectangular in shape. 
     A cover  13  is formed to have an inside cavity with a shape complementary to that of the outside surface of the body  15  so that the cover fits tightly around the body when inserted over it. In this embodiment, this cavity is totally enclosed except for an opening  27  through which the end  25  of the body  15  is inserted. Resilient tabs  29  and  31  extend into the cavity at the opening  27  from opposite sidewalls. When the body  15  is inserted through the opening  27  of the cover  13 , these tabs  29  and  31  bend backwards until they are positioned in front of the shoulders  19  and  21  of the body  15 , at which point the tabs snap outward again to secure the cover  13  on the body  15 . The rounded shape of the body end  25  makes this insertion easier but may not always be needed. 
     The cover  13  is preferably made from plastic, rubber or other moldable material, independently of the flash drive  11 . It is also desirable that the cover  13  have some degree of flexibility so that the inside walls of its cavity tightly conform to the outside walls of the body  15 , in the nature of a skin for the memory unit body. The walls of the cover  13  are preferably made to have a thickness between 0.5 and 2.0 millimeters in the areas that contact top, bottom and side walls of the body  15 . No adhesive need be used to attach the cover  13  to the body  15 . The end of the cover opposite its opening  27  may optionally be extended in a manner to form an opening  33  that accepts a neck chain, key ring, and the like, to allow an individual to carry the memory device when the cover is attached. 
     One of the criteria for choosing a material for the cover  13  is the tactile feel of its outside surface to the user. This tactile feel may also be controlled by treatment of the outside surface of the cover  13 , such as its roughening, smoothing, and the like. Two or more covers with a different outside surface feel may be made so that a manufacture, re-seller or end-user may choose among covers with different outside mechanical characteristics, according to personal taste. 
     Two or more such covers may also be made to have different visual characteristics. The covers may be made of optically transparent material, to have different uniform visible colors, different colors in patterns, and the like. The covers may also have different graphical patterns formed on them, or none at all. Various different indicia may be printed or otherwise applied on different covers, including alpha-numeric characters. In one specific form, the cover  13  may be made of optically transparent material with solid lettering on an outside surface that reflects from and/or casts a shadow on the underlying metal surface of the unit  11 , as described in the simultaneously filed patent application cross-referenced above. 
     An end-user may then choose a cover based on his or her personal taste when purchasing a new memory device, or substitute one cover for another. The tabs  29  and  31  of the cover  13  may be bent outward from the shoulders  21  of the body  11 , by the use of fingernails or an appropriate tool, to allow the cover to be pulled off the body. No matter which of many available covers  13  may be chosen for their tactile or visual characteristics, the core memory unit  11  remains the same. The relatively expensive core memory unit  11 , when compared to the cover  13 , may then be manufactured in large quantities and customized by the end-user, or even by a manufacturer or re-seller of memory devices. 
     Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and re-sellers of memory devices often like to apply their own names, trademarks, and the like, the devices they sell. The separate cover  13  can then be conveniently used for this purpose. An individual OEM or re-seller manufactures, or has manufactured for it, covers with its name and any trademarks on them, which are then attached to the core memory units  11  by hand or a simple machine. Different covers with different graphical designs, trademarks, and the like, or even different tactile feels, may be also be used by a single business for different product lines. In any of these cases, the common core memory units  11  are purchased in bulk without any difference between them except their memory capacity. An OEM or re-seller that attaches customized covers will normally offer two or more memory device products with different data storage capacities of their memories, and therefore at different prices. 
     As is evident from a second embodiment illustrated in  FIGS. 3-5 , the same concept can be used with memory cards. In this example, a core memory unit  41  is inserted into a cover  43  ( FIG. 3 ) to result in a Secure Digital (SD) card ( FIG. 4 ), a commercial form of memory card. The core memory unit  41  contains the one or more integrated circuit chips necessary to form the data storage system. The unit  41  is preferably made of molded plastic. The electronic system communicates to the outside world through nine electrical contacts  45   a - i  attached to a surface of the unit  41  along one end thereof. A cavity within the cover  43  has a shape that is complementary to the core unit  41 , with an opening  47  into which the core unit  41  is inserted from an end  51  that is opposite to the end carrying the contacts  45 . Eight apertures  49   a - h  exist in a top wall of the cover  43 , opening to the cavity within, at positions aligned with the contacts  45   a - i  of the core unit  41 . The contacts  45   a - i  are then accessible through respective apertures  49   a - h  when the core unit  41  is positioned within the cover  43  (aperture  49   h  exposes two contacts  45   h  and  45   i ), as shown in  FIG. 4 . Walls between the apertures define recesses for the contacts, according to specifications of the SD memory card. 
     In order to retain the core unit  41  within the cover  43 , in this specific example, the top surface of the cover includes a resilient detent  55  that normally depends downward into the cavity within. This is best seen by the cross-sectional view of  FIG. 5 . The core memory unit  41  has a recess  57  in its top surface into which the detent  55  snaps when the unit  41  is inserted into the cover  43  through its end opening  47 . The relative positions of the detent  55  and recess  57  are such that the unit  41  is maintained fully within the cavity of the cover  43 , with the unit surface contacts  45   a - i  aligned with the corresponding apertures  49   a - h  of the cover. The core memory unit  41  may be released by the use of a small tool to raise the detent up out of the unit&#39;s recess  57 , which then allows the unit  41  to be withdrawn from the cover  43 . Travel of the core unit  41  into the cavity of the sleeve  43  through the opening  47  is restrained by an appropriate stop or end surface (not shown) formed in the cavity. 
     Different covers  43  can then be provided for use with the same core units  41 , in the same manner as described above with respect to the first embodiment. Individual covers are made to have a visual appearance, tactile feel, and other external characteristics according to the tastes and desires of any of an end-user, a re-seller, an OEM or a manufacturer. In one specific form, the cover  43  may be made of optically transparent material with solid lettering on an outside surface that reflects from and/or casts a shadow on the surface of the core unit  41 , as described in the simultaneously filed patent application cross-referenced above. According to that cross-referenced application, reflective foil would be attached to the surface of the core memory unit  41 , which would then be visible through the cover  43 . This foil may include a hologram on its exposed surface, such as a diffusely reflecting rainbow hologram. 
     A chart of  FIG. 6  illustrates some of the commercial possibilities presented by use of covers separate from core memory units. A common supply  61  of memory core units (core  11  of  FIGS. 1-2 , or core  41  of  FIGS. 3-5 , as examples) having a particular data storage capacity are used to form complete memory devices. A supply  63  of first covers (respective cover  13  of  FIGS. 1-2 , or cover  43  of  FIGS. 3-5 , as examples) provides one choice to be combined with the core units. A supply  65  of second covers provides another choice. The first and second covers are different in some outer characteristic, such as their visual appearances, tactile feel, and others discussed above. 
     An entity A ( 67 ) then forms complete memory devices, indicated at  69 , by placing the covers of  63  on the core units of  61 . Similarly, an entity B ( 71 ) places the covers of  65  onto the same core units of  61  to form complete memory devices, as indicated at  73 , that therefore have perceptually different outer characteristics than the memory devices indicated at  69 . The entities A and B may be different end-user individuals that have customized their memory devices to their different tastes. Or the entities A and B can be different businesses that manufacture or sell complete memory devices, and which have customized the outer characteristics to their different business requirements. 
     Although the various aspects of the present invention have been described with respect to specific exemplary embodiments thereof, it will be understood that the present invention is entitled to protection within the full scope of the appended claims.