MMC

MMC
The MMC card or MultiMediaCard was introduced in 1997 by SanDisk Corporation and Siemens AG. At that point the MMC card was the smallest memory card, about the size of a postage stamp, in the market based on flash memory technology. The MMC card is very similar to the Secure Digital Memory Card, actually the SD Memory Card is based on the MMC card. They have almost the same form factor the only differences are that the SD Memory Cards are slightly thicker and they have a write protection switch.

Since the MMC card had slow transfer speed, 2.5 MB/sec, in comparison to other memory cards, mostly compared to SD Memory Card, a new high performance version of the MMC card was introduced in 2005 by the name MMCplus. The MMCplus has today the highest, up to 52 MB/sec, theoretical data transfer speed in the whole memory card industry.



The MultiMediaCard Association announced that by the end of 2005 the secureMMC application will be available only for the MMCplus and MMCmobile memory cards. The secureMMC is a copyright protection application that features DRM, Digital Rights Management, and VPN, Virtual Private Network, capabilities.

Since the MMC cards are thinner they can be used in all SD Memory Card slots but not the vice versa. Based on that fact the MMC and MMCplus memory cards can be used in SD Memory Cards slots they are today the most compatible memory cards in the market. It is important to keep in mind that music stored on MMCplus or standard MMC cards my not be able to play back when inserted into a SD Memory Card slot due to the copyright protection features supported by the SD slots.





Introduced 1997

Association MultiMediaCard Association – MMCA


Dimensions in mm/inch (H x W x D) 32 x 24 x 1.4 - 1.26 x 0.94 x 0.05

Storage capacity
16MB - 4GB



Storage capacity in

Data transfer speed



Read
Up to 40 MB/sec – 266 X

Write Up to 40 MB/sec – 266 X

Copyright protection Yes - secureMMC

Write protection switch No

Operating voltage 3.3V

Remarks Compatible to SD slots - secureMMC

Employed by Digital Cameras – PDAs - etc

Adapters CompactFlash - PC Card


Expansion modules – I/O Yes

Memory card durability
Memory card reliability