Cached at:
05/20/26, 05:28 PM
# SmartMedia card interface spec opened, available for free - EDN
Source: [https://www.edn.com/smartmedia-card-interface-spec-opened-available-for-free/](https://www.edn.com/smartmedia-card-interface-spec-opened-available-for-free/)
TOKYO — Aiming to create a de facto standard in the harshly competitive memory card market, backers of the SmartMedia card have opened its interface specification and made it available free of charge\. The move is designed to give the flash memory card format, initially spearheaded by Toshiba Corp\., an edge as it competes for slots in digital cameras, personal digital assistants and other mobile devices\.
The Solid State Floppy Disk Card \(SSFDC\) Forum published SmartMedia's interface specification, dubbed Smil \(for “smart media interface library”\), in English and in Japanese[on its home page](http://www.ssfdc.or.jp/)on Aug\. 8, and has reportedly downloaded more than 5,000 copies of the spec since then\.
Smil is sectioned into three parts for hardware, software and a Windows driver\. The hardware section includes a VHDL description that can be used as a macrocell when manufacturers design gate arrays for the SmartMedia interface\. The small\-scale gate array comprises about 200 gates\. The software section includes source code to drive the interface and to aid users in porting the code to their own firmware\.
Toshiba owns the interface specification's intellectual property\. But Hiroshi Iwasaki, senior manager of Toshiba's media card strategic planning group, said, “The company has no intention of collecting license fees\. It is open to users so long as they use it properly\.” Toshiba hopes SmartMedia “will become the de facto standard in the media card market,” he said\.
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The SSFDC Forum was ready to open the specification about two years ago\. But it took time to reach a consensus among forum members, especially the software vendors that develop SmartMedia\-related software such as controllers, said Patrick Ohara, chairman of the forum's technical committee\.
Advocates argued that an open specification would pump up software vendors' business because the increased number of users would still need support\. The software vendors finally agreed, said Ohara\.
The SmartMedia card measures 37 x 45 x 0\.76 mm and has 22 I/O pins but no controller\. It was among the first media cards launched and has been competing with SanDisk's CompactFlash cards and Sony's Memory Stick in the digital still camera market\.
The card's simple, controllerless structure is often criticized by competitors\. However, Joe Kojima, division manager of Olympus Optical Co\. Ltd\.'s digital camera division, said it will ultimately be less expensive than other cards and has the most potential as a film substitute\. Toshiba and Samsung Electronics are currently producing the card\.
The SmartMedia card appeared on the market in 1996 with annual shipments of about 1\.5 million units, increasing to 7\.5 million units in 1999\. The forum expects shipments to surpass 10 million units this year\. “No other media card has reached 10 million units per year so far,” said Ohara\. Now that the spec has been opened, the forum expects the increase in this year's shipments to be even greater\.
**Growing membership**
The SSFDC Forum, which was established in April 1996 with 37 members, has grown to 153 members, 49 of them from outside Japan\. Camera makers account for only 10 percent of the total membership, but presently consume nearly 70 percent of the cards shipped\.
With the demand growing for more\-secure media, enhanced\-security solutions such as the Secure Digital card and Sony's Memory Stick were launched last year\. The SmartMedia card also added a unique ID function for security purposes\.
For audio applications, the new crop of high\-security cards would seem to have more potential, but Jiro Yoshii, general manager of Toshiba's media card strategic planning group, said SmartMedia still has a chance\. The “Windows Media Audio player, for example, manages security at the application level and requires a media\-card\-only ID function\. So if the WMA becomes popular, SmartMedia can be important” for that application, he said\.