page_title: SD card
section_title: Comparison to other flash memory formats
hierarchical_section_title: SD card / Comparison to other flash memory formats
context_page_description: Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Association for use in portable devices.
  The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDisk, Panasonic and Toshiba as an improvement over MultiMediaCards, and has become the industry standard. The three companies formed SD-3C, LLC, a company that licenses and enforces intellectual property rights associated with SD memory cards and SD host and ancillary products.
  The companies also formed the SD Association, a non-profit organization, in January 2000 to promote and create SD Card standards. SDA today has about 1,000 member companies. The SDA uses several trademarked logos owned and licensed by SD-3C to enforce compliance with its specifications and assure users of compatibility.
context_section_description: Overall, SD is less open than CompactFlash or USB flash memory drives. Those open standards can be implemented without paying for licensing, royalties, or documentation. (CompactFlash and USB flash drives may require licensing fees for the use of the SDA's trademarked logos.)
  However, SD is much more open than Sony's Memory Stick, for which no public documentation nor any documented legacy implementation is available. All SD cards can be accessed freely using the well-documented SPI bus.
  xD cards are simply 18-pin NAND flash chips in a special package and support the standard command set for raw NAND flash access. Although the raw hardware interface to xD cards is well understood, the layout of its memory contents—necessary for interoperability with xD card readers and digital cameras—is totally undocumented. The consortium that licenses xD cards has not released any technical information to the public.
  Table data compiled from MMC, SD, and SDIO specifications from SD Association and JEDEC web sites. Data for other card variations are interpolated.
caption: Size comparison of various flash cards: SD, CompactFlash, MMC, xD
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