CF Association moves from SATA to PCIe

For some reason, no one seems to care

Nov 30, 2010 by

Sandisk logoIT LOOKS LIKE the CFast cards we exclusively showed you last spring are actually dead, the CF association didn’t deem 300MBps fast enough. Instead, they went with a newer spec that will hit 500MBps. Unfortunately, it is still a compact flash card, so no one really cares.

You can read all the exciting news here, see our pics of the stillborn CFast cards here, or save yourself some time and just read the short version. Short version, Sandisk, Nikon and Sony felt that the idea of a ATA/SATA based CF was a bit stale, and would not for some reason meet their requirements. One would guess that the difference was more financial than technical.

That said, the new version will be based on PCIe, the CF Association says SATA is too slow. This new spec is capable of speeds up to 500MBps and sizes up to 2TB. That should be enough for the next 2-3 years anyway, more than enough time for a new spec to be formulated. Meanwhile, the world will continue to use the more patent-tithe encumbered but vastly cheaper SD format.S|A

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Charlie Demerjian

Roving engine of chaos and snide remarks at SemiAccurate
Charlie Demerjian is the founder of Stone Arch Networking Services and SemiAccurate.com. SemiAccurate.com is a technology news site; addressing hardware design, software selection, customization, securing and maintenance, with over one million views per month. He is a technologist and analyst specializing in semiconductors, system and network architecture. As head writer of SemiAccurate.com, he regularly advises writers, analysts, and industry executives on technical matters and long lead industry trends. Charlie is also available through Guidepoint and Mosaic. FullyAccurate