Product manual

Preliminary CompactFlash Memory Card Product Manual
SanDisk CompactFlash Memory Card Product Manual Rev. 8 © 2001 SANDISK CORPORATION
7
1.0 Introduction to the CompactFlash Memory
Card
The SanDisk CompactFlash™ Memory Card
(CF™) products provide high capacity solid state
flash memory that electrically complies with the
Personal Computer Memory Card International
Association ATA (PC Card ATA) standard. (In
Japan, the applicable standards group is JEIDA.)
The CompactFlash Memory Card Series also
supports a True IDE Mode that is electrically
compatible with an IDE disk drive. CompactFlash
Memory Cards provide up to 512 million bytes
(Megabytes, MBytes or MB) of formatted storage
capacity in the CF Type I form factor. The original
CF form factor card can be used in any system that
has a CF slot, and with a Type II PCMCIA adapter
can be used in any system that has a PCMCIA
Type II or Type III socket.
The CompactFlash Memory Cards use SanDisk
Flash memory which was designed by SanDisk
specifically for use in mass storage applications. In
addition to the mass storage specific Flash memory
chips, the CompactFlash Memory Cards include an
on-card intelligent controller that provides a high
level interface to the host computer. This interface
allows a host computer to issue commands to the
memory card to read or write blocks of memory. A
block of memory consists of 16 Kilobytes of data
and is protected by a powerful Error Correcting
Code (ECC).
The CompactFlash Memory Card on-card
intelligent controller manages interface protocols,
data storage and retrieval as well as ECC, defect
handling and diagnostics, power management and
clock control. Once the CompactFlash Memory
Card has been configured by the host, it appears to
the host as a standard ATA (IDE) disk drive.
Additional ATA commands have been provided to
enhance system performance.
The host system can support as many cards as
there are CompactFlash and PCMCIA Type II or III
card slots. The original form factor CompactFlash
Memory Cards require a PCMCIA Type II Adapter
to be used in a PCMCIA Type II or Type III socket.
SanDisk also offers an industrial version of the
CompactFlash Memory Card Series, which has a
broader operating and non-operating temperature
range than the standard product. Please see Section
2 for detailed specifications.