High capacity miniSD Card to be marketed worldwide to meet growing demand for music and photo storage in mobile devices

IRVINE, Calif., and TOKYO, May 24, 2006 — Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc., (TAEC)* and its parent,Toshiba Corporation, today announced an expanded line-up of large capacity miniSD Memory Cards with the introduction of a 2-gigabyte (GB)1 capacity card. The miniSD Card is much smaller than a standard SD Memory Card but delivers increasingly large capacity. Its primary application is in mobile devices with miniSD slots, but it can also be used in standard SD slots with an adapter. "As mobile phones increasingly offer high-resolution cameras and support for digital music, demand is growing for a small, versatile, high capacity storage

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device for images and music. For the growing percentage of cell phones equipped with a miniSD Card slot, Toshiba’s new 2GB card addresses these requirements," said Brian Kumagai, business development manager, NAND Flash, for TAEC. With the addition of the new 2GB miniSD Card, Toshiba will expand a product line-up that already extends up to 1GB.

1. The 2GB storage capacity is ideal for mobile phones with megapixel cameras and music player functions² and is able to store up to 35 hours of music³.
2. Maximum writing speed of approx. 5MB/s⁴
3. Adopts CPRM⁵ advanced copyright protection function

Specifications

Name of Product:	2GB miniSD Memory Card
Maximum Write Speed:	5MB/second
Compatible Interface:	SD Memory Card standard compatible
Power Supply Voltage:	2.7 – 3.6V
Compatible Standard:	SD Memory Card standard compatible
Exterior Dimensions:	20.0mm(W)×21.5mm(L)×1.4mm(T)
Weight Approx.:	1g

Pricing and Availability
The Toshiba 2GB miniSD Memory Card will be available in June 2006 priced at $109.99.

SD Memory Card
The SD Memory Card is a revolutionary Flash memory storage device designed to meet the converging security, capacity, ergonomic and performance requirements of emerging audio, video, data and multimedia consumer electronics markets. The SD Memory Card was jointly developed by Toshiba Corporation, SanDisk Corporation and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (best known for its Panasonic brand name products). The SD Memory Card includes key enhancements over existing Flash cards including cryptographic security, protection of copyrighted data, high-data transfer rate for fast copy/download and high storage capacity. TAEC currently offers a wide selection of SD Memory Cards with storage capacities of, 512MB⁶, 1GB and 2GB in the standard (blue) product family, and a higher performance (white) family of cards in, 512MB and 1GB capacities.

The Toshiba SD Memory card line-up also includes miniSD in capacities ranging from 512MB to the new 2GB card. As the world of SD expands, SD Memory remains the global standard for compact, portable memory.

NAND Flash Background
As a recognized pioneer in flash technology, Toshiba was a principal innovator of NAND- and NOR-type Flash technology in the 1980’s. Toshiba maintains leadership in Flash technology today, with a complete line of NAND memory in densities from 64 megabit⁷ (Mb) to 16Gb⁸ to meet various application requirements. NAND Flash has become one of the leading technologies for solid-state storage applications because of its high-speed programming capability, high-speed erasing, and low cost. The sequential nature (serial access) of NAND-based Flash memory provides notable advantages for these block-oriented data storage applications. Toshiba’s NAND Flash memory products are optimized for general solid-state storage, image file storage and audio for applications such as solid-state disk drives, digital cameras, audio appliances, set-top boxes and industrial storage.

*About TAEC
Combining quality and flexibility with design engineering expertise, TAEC brings a breadth of advanced, next-generation technologies to its customers. This broad offering includes memory and flash memory-based storage solutions, a broad range of discrete devices, displays, medical tubes, ASICs, custom SOCs, microprocessors, microcontrollers and wireless components for the computing, wireless, networking, automotive and digital consumer markets.

TAEC is an independent operating company owned by Toshiba America, Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Corp. (Toshiba), Japan’s second largest semiconductor manufacturer and the world’s ninth largest integrated manufacturer of electric and electronic equipment. In almost 130 years of operation, Toshiba has recorded numerous firsts and made many valuable contributions to technology and society. For additional company and product information, please visit TAEC’s website at chips.toshiba.com. For technical inquiries, please e-mail Tech.Questions@taec.toshiba.com.

Information in this press release, including product pricing and specifications, content of services and contact information, is current and believed to be accurate on the date of the announcement, but is subject to change without prior notice. Technical and application information contained here is subject to the most recent applicable Toshiba product specifications. In developing designs, please ensure that Toshiba products are used within specified operating ranges as set forth in the most recent Toshiba product specifications and the information set forth in Toshiba's "Handling Guide for Semiconductor Devices," or "Toshiba Semiconductor Reliability Handbook." This information is available at www.chips.toshiba.com, or from your TAEC representative.

All trademarks and tradenames held within are the properties of their respective holders.

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¹When used herein in relation to memory density, gigabyte and/or GB means 1,024x1,024x1,024 = 1,073,741,824 bytes. Usable capacity may be less. For details, please refer to specifications.
²For 2GB miniSD-compatible mobile phones
³At 128kbps bit rate
⁴Read and write speed may vary depending on the read and write conditions, such as devices you use and file sizes you read and/or write. (For purposes of measuring write speed in this context, 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes).
⁵The copyright protection technology developed by 4C Entity, LLC (Toshiba, Matsushita, Intel and IBM), which is also used on DVD.
⁶When used herein in relation to memory density, megabyte and/or MB means 1,024x1,024 = 1,048,576 bytes. Usable capacity may be less. For details, please refer to specifications.
⁷When used herein in relation to memory density, megabit and/or Mb means 1,024x1,024 = 1,048,576 bits. Usable capacity may be less. For details, please refer to specifications.
⁸When used herein in relation to memory density, gigabit and/or Gb means 1,024x1,024x1,024 = 1,073,741,824 bits. Usable capacity may be less. For details, please refer to specifications.