Product manual

1. Introduction to the Industrial Grade SD Card

The Industrial Grade Secure Digital Card is a flash-based memory card that is specifically designed to meet the

security, capacity, performance and environmental requirements inherent in newly emerging audio and video

consumer electronic devices. The Industrial Grade SD Card includes a copyright protection mechanism that

complies with the security of the SDMI standard, and is faster and capable of higher Memory capacity. The

Industrial Grade SD Card security system uses mutual authentication and a “new cipher algorithm” to protect from

illegal usage of the card content. A non-secured access to the user‘s own content is also available. The physical

form factor, pin assignment and data transfer protocol are forward compatible with the SD Card, with some

additions.

Industrial Grade SD Card communication is based on an advanced nine-pin interface (Clock, Command, 4xData

and 3xPower lines) designed to operate in a low voltage range. The communication protocol is defined as part of

this specification. The Industrial Grade SD Card host interface supports regular MultiMediaCard operation as well.

In other words, MultiMediaCard forward compatibility was preserved. Actually the main difference between the SD

Card and MultiMediaCard is the initialization process. SD Card specifications were originally defined by MEI

(Matsushita Electric Company), Toshiba Corporation and SanDisk Corporation. Currently, the specifications are

controlled by the Secure Digital Association (SDA). The SanDisk SD Card was designed to be compatible with the

SD Card Physical Specification.

The Industrial Grade SD Card interface allows for easy integration into any design, regardless of which

microprocessor is used. For compatibility with existing controllers, the SanDisk Industrial Grade SD Card and

interface offers an alternate communication protocol based on the SPI standard.

The current Industrial Grade SD Card provides up to 512 million bytes of memory using flash memory chips, which

were designed especially for use in mass storage applications. In addition to the mass storage specific flash memory

chip, the Industrial Grade SD Card includes an on-card intelligent controller which manages interface protocols,

security algorithms for copyright protection, data storage and retrieval, as well as Error Correction Code (ECC)

algorithms, defect handling and diagnostics, power management and clock control.

Figure 1-1. Industrial Grade SD Card Block Diagram

SanDisk

Flash

Modules

SanDisk

Single Chip

Controller

Control

Data In/Out

SD Bus/SPI Bus

Interface

SanDisk Industrial Grade SD Card