SanDisk Introduces 8GB SDHC Flash Card -- Highest Capacity Yet in the SD Format

SanDisk® Corporation (Nasdaq:SNDK) today introduced an 8-gigabyte (GB)1 SD™ High Capacity (SDHC™) card — the highest capacity now available in the SD format. The new card, which SanDisk is showing in Hall 23, Stand B28, at the CeBIT show here, holds more than 4,000 high-resolution pictures, as many as 2,000 digital songs or up to 15 hours of MPEG 4 video2. The 8GB SDHC card will come bundled with a SanDisk MicroMate™ USB 2.0 reader at no extra charge. SDHC cards require an SDHC-compatible reader, so providing the MicroMate reader with the card ensures that users will be able to connect the card to their computers. The MicroMate reader also works with standard SD cards. "As consumers add more digital entertainment and memories to their lives -- especially when they start shooting video with a digital still camera or digital camcorder -- they need more storage capacity in flash memory cards," said Susan Park, retail product marketing manager at SanDisk. "The new 8GB SDHC delivers twice the capacity of what was previously our biggest SD card -- the 4GB SDHC -- introduced just eight months ago.” SDHC is the new designation for cards in any SD format larger than 2GB that adhere to the new SD 2.0 specification. Previous specifications for SD cards limited capacity to 2GB, while SDHC supports capacities up to 32GB. The specification was developed by the SD Association, an industry standards organization, which also defined three classes for speed and performance capabilities. The 8GB SDHC card adheres to the SD Speed Class 2 rating, which guarantees a minimum data-transfer rate of 2MB/second3. SDHC cards are not backwards compatible -- they will only work in devices with SDHC card slots. "SanDisk is including a MicroMate USB 2.0 reader free with every 8GB SDHC card to make sure that users have no trouble transferring files between the card and their computers,” said Wes Brewer, SanDisk’s vice president for consumer products marketing. "More than 30 digital still cameras and digital camcorders from Canon, Casio, Nikon, Panasonic, Pentax and Sanyo are already SDHC-compatible. We expect that SDHC will soon spread to digital music players, mobile phones and other personal electronics, making the 8GB SDHC card a versatile tool for moving around lots of photos, music and video.” The 8GB SDHC card with MicroMate USB 2.0 reader will be available in April in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The bundle will be available in Japan and elsewhere in Asia later in the second quarter. In the United States, the bundle will carry a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $189.99. For additional information on the SDHC format, please visit SanDisk’s website: What is SDHC: http://www.sandisk.com/sdhc/SDHC.pdf SDHC product information: http://www.sandisk.com/sdhc SanDisk is the original inventor of flash storage cards and is the world’s largest supplier of flash data storage card products, using its patented, high-density flash memory and controller technology. SanDisk is headquartered in Milpitas, California and has operations worldwide, with more than half of its sales outside the U.S. 1 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes. 2 Approximations based on compressed JPEG images on 5 MP camera (pictures); 4 minute songs at 128 kbps MP3 (songs) and hours of Super Fine MPEG 4 video (320 x 240, 384 kbps video). Actual numbers may vary. 3 The SDA speed class rating was developed to identify minimum data transfer and latency requirements for a host application, and is generally related to the emerging application of uninterrupted real-time video capture (from camcorders and camera phones, for example) with an appropriately rated SD card. By contrast, SanDisk's own performance specifications apply to sequential write and read operations in non-real-time applications such as file transfers between a card and a computer or in digital cameras between the camera’s buffer and the card. SanDisk’s web site/home page address: http://www.sandisk.com SanDisk’s product and executive images can be downloaded from http://www.sandisk.com/corporate/mediakit/ SanDisk, the SanDisk logo and SanDisk Ultra are trademarks of SanDisk Corporation, registered in the U.S. and other countries. MicroMate is a trademark of SanDisk Corporation. SD, SDHC and the SDHC logo are trademarks. Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective holder(s). All trade names are either registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders. This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including expectations for new product introductions, applications, markets, and customers that are based on our current expectations and involve numerous risks and uncertainties that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate. Risks that may cause these forward-looking statements to be inaccurate include among others: market demand for our products may grow more slowly than our expectations, there may be a slower adoption rate for these products in new markets that we are targeting, these products may not perform as expected, these products may not be available when expected or at the prices expected, and the other risks detailed from time-to-time in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports, including, but not limited to, Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We do not intend to update the information contained in this press release.