The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 27, 2006
Filed:
Mar. 16, 2004
Horng-yee Chou, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Szu-kuang Chou, Cupertino, CA (US);
Charles C. Lee, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Horng-Yee Chou, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Szu-Kuang Chou, Cupertino, CA (US);
Charles C. Lee, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Super Talent Electronics, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
An extended Secure-Digital (SD) card has a second interface that uses some of the SD-interface lines. The SD card's mechanical and electrical card-interface is used, but 2 or 4 signals in the SD interface are multiplexed for use by the second interface. The second interface can have a single differential pair of serial-data lines to perform Universal-Serial-Bus (USB) transfers, or two pairs of differential data lines for Serial-Advanced-Technology-Attachment (SATA), Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIE), or IEEE 1394 transfers. A card-detection routine on a host can initially use the SD interface to detect extended capabilities and command the card to switch to using the second interface. The extended SD card can communicate with legacy SD hosts using just the SD interface, and extended SD hosts can read legacy SD cards using just the SD interface, or extended SD cards using the second interface. MultiMediaCard and Memory Stick are alternatives.