MultiMediaCards Make a Comeback

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.atpinc.com/home/kente/mmc.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.atpinc.com/home/kente/mmc.htm</a><br /><br /></div>Has anyone ever heard of ATP? I haven't, but it looks like they're about to make a big splash in the memory card world. For those that don't know, the SD card standard is controlled by Panasonic, and when a company like Sandisk wants to make cards, they pay a royalty to Panasonic. MMC, on the other hand, is a royalty-free format governed by several companies. MMC cards came out before SD cards, but they had no momentum and topped out around 128 MB. The format seemed all but dead, yet somehow ATP has managed to crank out 512 MB MMC cards, and they have 1 GB cards on tap as well. Here's a blurb from their site:<br /><br /> <img src="http://www.atpinc.com/home/kente/512MBMMC3.gif" /> <br /><br />"ATP's MultiMediaCards™ make your digital music (MP3s), digital photos and all other digital data more portable than ever before. Approximately the size of a postage stamp, ATP's MultiMediaCards are fully compliant with industry standards, and Plug and Play compatible. ATP MultiMediaCards achieve much higher read and write throughput speeds than leading competitors."<br /><br />They have a <a href="http://www.atpinc.com/home/kente/atpbenchmark.pdf">PDF benchmark file</a> that shows ATP MMC cards outperforming SD cards, which is something I haven't seen before. I hope we see some pricing competition for SD cards to prices will fall - 512 MB SD cards are still a little pricey, although they've certainly come down in price a great deal over the past six months.

[T-Will]

How much $$$ are they?

[dean_shan]

SD or MMC it doesn't matter to me. Whatever one it cheaper per MB I will go for it. But the smallest card I will buy is 128MB.

[aroma]

8O This is suprising. I didn't even know there was anything bigger than 128MB on the market, and here they come out of left field with not only a 256MB already for sale but a 512 to soon follow! I didn't see this one comming.

[R K]

I think Sandisk had a 256MB MMC Card out for a short while now.

[dean_shan]

I went to the Gizmodo website (source of the MMC news) and went to the link for an Amphibious Car (http://www.aquada.co.uk/aquada/homepage.jsp?flash=true), I want one. That is so cool.
:nonono: I mean those MMC cards look good.

[nosmohtac]

I couldn't find a price on any of these. Anyone know how much they are?
I was going to buy a MMC before I bought SD, because they were cheaper, and I don't need the Secure feature of SD. I'm glad somebody bumped up the bar on MMC. :clap:

[patwoods]

I think Sandisk had a 256MB MMC Card out for a short while now.

I got screwed trying to buy a 512MB PQI SD card from Buy.Com about a month ago. It was listed with an image and everything, but when it shipped, I got a 256MB XD card instead, and an apology.

[kendrick]

This is great news. Now that SD no longer has an advantage in capacity, there is absolutely no reason for consumers to continue to support that medium. There needs to be some serious push from the MMC standards body to educate consumers about how much their ability to use and manipulate data can be hindered, monitored or controlled through SD.

At risk of repeating myself, I have serious objections to the some of the methods used to implement DRM in current technologies. Secure Digital is just one of the many ways that limits are being imposed on consumers without their knowledge or consent. I hope that these new MMC cards lead OEM manufacturers to leave the SD features out of their devices.

-KKC, who didn't know that a single company held the rights to SD.

[CTSLICK]

SD or MMC it doesn't matter to me. Whatever one it cheaper per MB I will go for it. But the smallest card I will buy is 128MB.

Ditto! Price rules but comparable performance will factor into it for me too.

So why did we "need" SD to begin with...I am trying to remember. Was it something to do with being able to use the technology for digital software rights?

[easylife]

Has anyone ever heard of ATP?
Adenosine Triphosphate (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/atp/atp1.htm)! :rock on dude!: I have some ATP, and I suspect you do too! (You'd be dead if you didn't! :lol: )

[kendrick]

In a nutshell... Secure Digital cards allow a software publisher to control who uses the data stored on them, and when. Theoretically, a Secure Digital slot implemented with all the features can prevent a user from writing over data, copying data to other storage, or accessing the data without proper credentials or beyond a certain date range.

Most Pocket PC's don't have those features implemented in hardware, and are just Secure Digital compatible. Also, most SD cards sold to consumers won't prevent people from writing to them, copying off of them, or erasing them. But the fact that the capability is there is what bothers me... It's like having a security camera and an electronic lock on the door to my house, but not having access to the tapes or the key code. What do I do one day when I can't get into my own house, and some salesman is waiting outside because he knows when I come in and out?

I'll admit that software developers and other traditional media providers need to protect their property somehow. But limiting the way I use a piece of hardware that I paid for is not the way to do it. If somebody wants to lock down my hardware, they can buy it for me. Otherwise, I'll use it the way I please.

-KKC

[caywen]

i like mmc now

:multi: :onfire: :multi: :onfire: :multi: :onfire:

[jeff]

I'll admit that software developers and other traditional media providers need to protect their property somehow. But limiting the way I use a piece of hardware that I paid for is not the way to do it. If somebody wants to lock down my hardware, they can buy it for me. Otherwise, I'll use it the way I please.

I think you can take off the tin foil helmet. The protective measures are used by software developers who distribute their product on SD cards, like those games and dictionaries Palm put out. Shouldn't they be allowed to control their product? What possible reason could a memory manufacturer have to limit access to the flash media they're selling? I can't think of any scenario where SD's DRM could be used against the consumer.

[dh]

Has anyone ever heard of ATP?
Adenosine Triphosphate (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/atp/atp1.htm)! :rock on dude!: I have some ATP, and I suspect you do too! (You'd be dead if you didn't! :lol: )

I remember years ago going to a biology lecture entitled "ATP is not an Indian tent".

[dunneldeen]

I couldn't help but notice that their speed comparison was rather devoid of the top performers in the SD card arena (ie. the Lexar and Panasonic 256Meg cards.) They had the Sandisk 256Meg card, but the boards seem pretty unanimous about their bad performance.

[karen]

What possible reason could a memory manufacturer have to limit access to the flash media they're selling? I can't think of any scenario where SD's DRM could be used against the consumer.

I agree with all you said...BUT...someone will figure out a way and a reason to do this given all the panic on IP issues.

[bdipert]

I'm working from oft-faulty memory here, but isn't MMC a single-bit (ie serial) data bus, whereas SD supports an up-to four-bit interface? If so, this puts quite a lot of doubt in my mind as to the company's performance claims....unless the flash memory behind the bus is so slow that the bus itself isn't the bottleneck. However, with the page mode capabilities of today's NAND chips.....the memory should NOT be the bottleneck.

The other question, of course, is whether or not Pocket PC manufacturers have implemented anything wider than a 1-bit bus to whatever's in the SD-or-MMC slot. If it's serial only, that levels the playing field too.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

Now that SD no longer has an advantage in capacity, there is absolutely no reason for consumers to continue to support that medium.
Except that SD can support I/O devices and MMC cannot?

[snap]

Its nice to see MMC capacity go up. Some new Nokia phones (like the 3300 Music Phone) support MMC cards but not SD cards. If SD cards are more "secure", why did a phone company choose MMC over SD? Doesn't MMC have some "content controlling" features too (say to prevent me from sharing ringtones, games, etc. with others)?

[maximus]

Usually, when something is advertised as having larger capacity, cheaper, and faster ... there is a small print hidden somewhere.

I'm working from oft-faulty memory here, but isn't MMC a single-bit (ie serial) data bus, whereas SD supports an up-to four-bit interface?

Ah yes, MMC is 1 bit device. MMCs only have 1 data pin (pin #7 if I am not mistaken), so in a sense, it is a serial device, but in theory, if you can clock that serial connection fast enough, it should be able to outperform a 4 bit device with a much lower clock time.

[dunneldeen]

Its nice to see MMC capacity go up. Some new Nokia phones (like the 3300 Music Phone) support MMC cards but not SD cards. If SD cards are more "secure", why did a phone company choose MMC over SD? Doesn't MMC have some "content controlling" features too (say to prevent me from sharing ringtones, games, etc. with others)?

The obvious reason to only support MMC would be that they don't have to pay royalties for MMC. If they supported SD, they would have to pay Panasonic a fee for every phone sold (maybe, but you get the point.)

[dma1965]

I have been consulting on a project with Hitachi for over a year now which involves a Secure MMC card. The prototype is out and is VERY secure. What we discovered was that SD is absolutely not secure, and the head of the project went so far as to claim the SD group was comitting fraud for making security claims (the card can be dismantled and the BUS can be accessed directly even if security is implemented). There is absolutely no advantage to using an SD card except for the fact that is can be write proteced with the external switch. As far as storage is concerned, MMC uses less overhead and is usually faster.

As far as reasons for using MMC over SD, the earlier post was correct. SD requires a royalty be paid to the SD group, MMC does not.

[Stephen Beesley]

hmmm this all starts to make getting a couple of (now considerably cheaper) MMC battery combos for my Jornada look like a good idea.

Thinking of the future however, (I am going to have to replace the Jornada one day :D) does an MMC card work in an SD slot?

Goldtee

[mxm]

Amphibious Car (http://www.aquada.co.uk/aquada/homepage.jsp?flash=true), I want one. That is so cool.

That is the coolest Amphibious car I've ever seen!! 8O

Err.., sorry...
In the Netherlands we have one store selling an 256Mb MMC for quite a while now, slightly cheaper than a Dane Elec 256Mb SD. It's manufactured by a very shady company called "VM", anyone ever heard of them?

check it (http://www.media-madness.nl/index.php/cPath/28?MediaMid=b00d606372715869cfd19fd92938d6c9)

[mxm]

Thinking of the future however, (I am going to have to replace the Jornada one day :D) does an MMC card work in an SD slot?

Most SD slots are MMC compatible, however, I tried one in a Palm (M500) and no go, probably something Palm didn't want.

And an other thing: how long will MMC be around? Seems like it's fading into the background!

[maximus]

In the Netherlands we have one store selling an 256Mb MMC for quite a while now, slightly cheaper than a Dane Elec 256Mb SD. It's manufactured by a very shady company called "VM", anyone ever heard of them?

Considering the risk of future incompatibility, I will only buy an MMC if it is at least 30-40% cheaper than an SD of the same size.

[mxm]

Considering the risk of future incompatibility, I will only buy an MMC if it is at least 30-40% cheaper than an SD of the same size.

Exactly! Now let's hope that the price of 512 Mb card is 50% of the 512 SD card price, otherwise where's the advantage?

BTW: anyone know why a 512 SD costs 3 to 4 times as much as a 256 SD?

[maximus]

BTW: anyone know why a 512 SD costs 3 to 4 times as much as a 256 SD?

1. Economy factor. There is always be a price premium for the latest-and-greatest product. Usually this is to (a) get significant margin from the uber-technophiles who can't live without the latest-and-greatest (b) control the demand for the 512, so that it is still within production capacity, especially if it needs new set of fab machining (c) avoid canibalization of the 256, so that older machines that can only produces 256MB can still operate until their depreciation period is met.

2. Cost of miniaturization (R&D, more advanced fab processing machineries, etc.)

3. Cost Curve. When new product is launched, usually companies are using a process that is not too efficient. Months later, when new (cheaper) production method is found, automatically the price is lowered according to the newer cost structure.

[krisbrown]

This is most splendid news, I was worried MMC was going to crash out, I would always buy MMC and have never touched SD this speed issue is so mute, the devices I use it for just can't transfer fast enough for it too make a difference, possibly high-end cameras may show the problem, but soon MMC will catch up, as these things always do, IDE/SCSI anyone?

[timothyt]

1. MMC cards are a little thinner than SD cards (they appear to be about 60% the thickness in the 3 that I have) which in some SD slots means that they fit a little loosely. I haven't had any problem using an MMC card in any SD device I've tried except for a Palm device that I didn't really care about anyway. This can be an issue the other way around though, as there were two phones I was testing that accepted MMC cards but SD cards were too thick(!) including the very popular Nokia "let's steal the iPaq model number" 3650 (see: http://www.mobiledia.com/forum/topic580.html for more info).

2. MMC cards are definitely 1 bit access which generally means they are slower IF the device supports SDIO, which may surprise you to see how many devices DON'T support SDIO.

3. There is a security layer in SD cards that isn't present in MMC cards, so a same-speed MMC and SD card through a non-SDIO interface card should give a slight (maybe 10-20%) speed advantage to the MMC card. Again, with an SDIO device the speed advantage would swing WAY in favor of the SD card because of 4bit vs. 1bit data access. Even with VOBenchmark (http://www.voscorp.com/ppc) it's hard to test because while you can test both, manufacturers don't really make an apples-to-apples card in both SD and MMC formats.

[Jason Dunn]

1. MMC cards are a little thinner than SD cards

That's strange - they used to be bigger (thicker) back in the Casio EM-500 days, which was the first Pocket PC to support MMC...

[Oleander]

I know its a "MS PPC" forum, but i'm still surprised to see that noone has mentioned Linux yet.

There are very little support for SD in the linux-camp given that its not an open forum.
So having large MMC cards is great news!

I personally have an iPAQ nearing its retirement, and i would love to put a 512 mb MMC in it and experiment with Linux. :twisted:

[maximus]

1. MMC cards are a little thinner than SD cards

That's strange - they used to be bigger (thicker) back in the Casio EM-500 days, which was the first Pocket PC to support MMC...

Same here. The MMC card supplied (64K) with nokia 3650 is a little bit thicker that SD cards.

[maximum360]

Now if we could only get a release date and cost...

I'll email them or call today to see if I can get any info.

Sandisk also seems to be dragging their feet with their 1 GB SD. That should have been released earlier this summer but it's being constantly pushed back. Retail price for that one is supposed to be in the $300-$330 range I believe.

Does anyone have any info on the Sandisk card?

[maximus]

Sandisk also seems to be dragging their feet with their 1 GB SD. That should have been released earlier this summer but it's being constantly pushed back. Retail price for that one is supposed to be in the $300-$330 range I believe.

Sweet. If the 1GB is $300, I can imagine the 512MB drops to below $100. Time to shop for more :D

[iamchocolatemilk]

I think you can take off the tin foil helmet. The protective measures are used by software developers who distribute their product on SD cards, like those games and dictionaries Palm put out. Shouldn't they be allowed to control their product? What possible reason could a memory manufacturer have to limit access to the flash media they're selling? I can't think of any scenario where SD's DRM could be used against the consumer.


LOL. that's the absolute funniest thing i've ever read on these forums...ever.

Later,
Andrew

[maximum360]

Just your friendly update. 8)

I just talked to the product manager for ATP's MMC card.

News is that the 512's should be ready by next week. Price is somewhere between $150 and $189.

The 1 GB MMC card should be ready by mid december with the price in the $300-$350 range. I guess they've done testing and production is starting up.

That will be my christmas present to me. :D

Sandisk is taking forever. :evil:

[iamchocolatemilk]

Thanks for the update, If theres even somewhat decent performance I see these bad boys moving quick.

later,
Andrew