When deciding on whcih microSD card to purchase for your device, be it a smartphone, PMP, or camera, its not just the storage capacity you have to consider. You also want a card that is fast enough to deal with the type of data you want to store on it and how that data is going to be accessed. Thats where the card Class comes in.
The higher the Class of the card, the faster the sustained read and write speeds it offers. So a Class 10 card will outperform a Class 4 card by doubling the transfer speed, for example. Even then you have to look at the details as two different Class 10 cards may promise different data transfer speeds.
Samsung is set to offer a new high early next year when it starts shipping a 3-bit-per-cell NAND Class 10 32GB microSD card based on a the latest 20nm process. That means we can expect 12MB/s write speeds and 24MB/s read speeds. Samsung state the 20nm cards will offer a 30% speed increase over their own 32nm equivalent chips. In other words, these are very fast microSD cards.
The new 20nm card will no doubt carry a price premium, but its one you probably wont mind paying if you want fast storage in your smartphone or PMP for HD video playback direct from the card. Class 10 cards are already available, but I doubt youll find many 20nm cards at the moment, let alone one that consistently offers up 12/24 transfer speeds.
Samsung announced it was shifting to a 20nm manufacturing process early last year, and this year Intel and Micron followed suit with new manufacturing plants coming online or existing ones being upgraded. The lure of 20nm is higher memory production and faster chips, meaning not only do they perform better, but they also cost less to produce. With that in mind we should expect 2012 to be the year 20nm chips go mainstream and start being used in most of our devices.
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