It looks like Compact Flash cards are not willing to become obsolete. The Compact Flash organization is upgrading its "old" CF to provide an easy upgrading path for newer and faster technologies..For that, expect to start seeing the new CFAST CF cards, which let go of the traditional PATA parallel interface (which maxed out at 1133MB/s) and will start using SATA, with speeds up to 3Gb/s.
Obviously, don't expect to see flash cards using this speed in the near future, but considering a lot of other devices use CF interfaces: input/output, VGA, Ethernet, Modems, Phones, Bluetooth, TV, GPS, etc. it's always nice to know you won't be limited by the old PATA transfer rates.
COMPACTFLASH ASSOCIATION DISPLAYING NEW CFAST™ CONNECTOR & PACKAGE AT CES 2008
CFast Utilizes SATA Interface for 3Gb/sec Interface Data Rate.
Palo Alto, California - January 4, 2008 - The CompactFlash Association (CFA) announces that CFast connectors and package will be displayed at CES 2008 in the CFA booth South 3 30166.
The CFast WG was formed in July 2007 to develop the CFast specification for a CompactFlash card with a SATA (Serial ATA) interface. CFA members interested in the SATA interface should apply for inclusion in the CFA's SATA working group.
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[Official Site]
Is there any timeframe on the release of the CFAST cards as yet, or a hardware specification other than the one available for download from the official site @ $100?
ReplyDelete@virtualgirl
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I have yet to find any more detailed info about it.
It's not uncommon for these new specs to take a couple of years to finally reach the market - the same thing is likely to happen with the recently announced USB 3.0, which is only expected to reach us by 2010 - if that's the case here, we'll probably only see Cfast cards in the 3rd or 4th quarter of 2009.