Ron,
A Bit more news:
SanDisk's CompactFlash Storage Cards Will Be Sold With New
NEC Digital Camera
Business Wire - February 13, 1997 11:45
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SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 13, 1997--SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ:SNDK) announced today that NEC's new Picona digital camera, the world's smallest LCD digital camera, will use removable
CompactFlash (CF) storage cards developed by SanDisk as the film in the camera.
Every Picona camera sold will include a 2MB CompactFlash card capable of storing 35 images.
With its decision to incorporate a native (built-in) slot for CF cards in every Picona, NEC joins a growing number of camera manufacturers who have selected CompactFlash as the digital film standard for their new digital cameras. Under an OEM agreement, SanDisk will produce CF cards for sale under the NEC label.
The NEC Picona digital camera weighs only 6.5 ounces (185 grams) and is small enough to easily fit in a shirt pocket. It has a standard VGA 480 X 640 pixel resolution and a 1.8 inch color LCD which allows immediate viewing of images taken.
As the camera has no internal storage, the removable CF cards -- about the size of a matchbook -- serve as the camera's sole storage. The cards can be easily removed and replaced with higher capacity CF cards -- 4, 6, 10 or 15MB -- if desired.
An NEC spokesman said: "We selected CompactFlash as the film for the camera because it met the criteria we established for a storage product. It is rugged, consumer friendly, tiny enough to fit in an ultra small camera, is the only small form factor storage card that meets industry standards and the cost will be attractive enough
for average consumers.
"NEC believes that CompactFlash is the digital film of the future and will be widely used around the world." NEC expects a strong market for the Picona camera and the CompactFlash cards they will use.
Nelson Chan, SanDisk's vice president of marketing, said: "With its ultra-small size, good resolution and vivid LCD display, NEC has an ideal product for the rapidly growing digital camera market. NEC has started a trend, that we expect will be pervasive, in which the camera has no internal memory and CompactFlash cards will serve as the only digital film.
"NEC will bundle a 2MB CompactFlash with every camera sold. These cards use the industry-standard ATA interface and are very economical because they can be reused repeatedly for many years to take hundreds of thousands of digital pictures."
The camera, bundled with a 2MB CompactFlash card, is priced at $566 (69,800 yen in Japan). Higher capacity cards ranging from 4 to 15MB are also available from SanDisk. The Picona digital camera, which initially will be sold only in Japan, will be available in March 1997. NEC did not disclose sales plans for foreign markets.
Images on a CompactFlash card can be easily moved, with the aid of an inexpensive, passive PC adapter card, to desktop, portable and handheld computers, printers, digital audio recorders and other electronic systems. The pictures can be viewed on the computers, transmitted to other PCs, faxed, inserted into newsletters,
reports and other documents, be used to set up Internet pages or printed out as standard, hard copy pictures.
With the worldwide support of the CompactFlash Association, which includes a membership of 61 leading computing, imaging, communications and semiconductor companies, CF is the global, de facto standard for
small storage cards. CompactFlash is an open industry standard -- the cards are based on flash semiconductor technology -- and a number of companies have announced that they will be second sources for CompactFlash cards.
NEC Corp., founded in 1899, is headquartered in Tokyo, and had net sales of 4.4 trillion yen in the 1995-96
fiscal year. NEC manufactures and markets a broad range of products, including computer systems,
communication systems, which extend from switching systems to cellular phones, and electronic devices,
which extend from microprocessors to memory chips.
SanDisk Corp., the world's largest supplier of flash data storage products, designs, manufactures and markets
industry- standard, solid-state data, image and audio storage products using proprietary, high density flash
memory and controller technology. SanDisk has strategic alliances with Seagate Technology, Matsushita
Electronic Corp., NEC Corp. and LG Semicon. Seagate holds a 25 percent equity stake in SanDisk. The
company is based in Sunnyvale. |
