Sony, SanDisk announce smaller Memory Stick card

Sony and SanDisk Friday announced a smaller Memory Stick card format, called Memory Stick Micro, that is designed to be used with mobile phones.

The Memory Stick Micro measures 15 millimeters (mm) by 12.5 mm by 1.2 mm, that makes it significantly smaller than the Memory Stick Duo card format, which measures 31 mm by 20 mm by 1.6 mm, the companies said in a joint statement . They will begin licensing the new card format starting next week, the statement said.

The first Memory Stick Micro cards are expected to hit the market during the first half of 2006, the two companies said.

The Memory Stick Micro was developed as an ultra-small card format designed to make possible more compact multimedia mobile phones, they said, adding that the card format has a maximum theoretical capacity of 32GB and a maximum theoretical data transfer rate of 160Mbps.

An adapter will be made available for the Memory Stick Micro that will allow users to use the cards with any device that supports the Memory Stick Pro format, the companies said.