Registers – Records – Conductive
Reexamination Certificate
2002-08-12
2004-08-17
St. Cyr, Daniel (Department: 2876)
Registers
Records
Conductive
C235S483000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06776348
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a combined flash memory card driver that can be built in or externally connected to computers or other digital devices to meet the requirements of consumers for data storage and eliminate shortcomings (e.g., easy to result in confusion, misunderstanding, and damage) in conventional flash memory card drivers due to their 3-Socket design with its single or double sockets capable of accessing various types of existing flash memory cards (also referred as memory cards).
2. Description of Related Art
A flash memory card driver is a device to access portable storage memory cards, which is widely used in Information Appliances (IA) and various portable digital products due to their lightweight, high capacity, shockproof feature, and rewrite feature. Currently, many popular products, such as PDA, DSC, MP3 Player, etc., adopt flash memory cards as the storage media.
As a new field, the Information Appliance (IA) industry is abundant with various innovative and complicated products. As the result, flash memory cards become a competing focus among many major manufacturers. However, no acknowledged standard on the specification of flash memory cards is available by now, which results in difficulty interoperability of flash memory cards among portable digital products, computers, peripheral equipment as well as brings inconvenience to consumers.
The major flash memory cards are detailed as follows:
1. PCMCIA ATA Flash Card (PC Card)
The PC Card specification (85.6 mm (L)×54 mm (W), thickness: Type I (3.3 mm), Type II (5.5 mm), Type III (10.5 mm)) is a dedicated one developed by PCMCIA, which is mainly used in Notebooks and portable computers.
2. Compact Flash Card (CF Card)
CF Cards (43 mm (L)×36 mm (W), thickness: Type I (3.3 mm), Type II (5 mm)) are featured with lightweight, small size, highly reliable, and low power consumption, and are favored by consumers. This product is mainly used in IA products (including PDA, DSC, MP3 Player, etc.) and peripheral equipment.
3. Smart Media Card (SM Card)
A SM Card is only 0.76 mm in thickness. It is manufactured by encapsulating a flash memory chip directly in a special card. The electric interface of this card is identical to that of the flash memory chip encapsulated. It is mainly used in digital cameras and MP3 Players.
4. Multimedia Card (MMC Card)
The MMC Card is the smallest one currently available in the market. It is only 1.4 mm in thickness and employs a serial interface. This product is mainly used in MP3 Players and Portable Phones.
5. Memory Stick Card (MS Card)
The MS Card is similar to a chewing gum in size and employs a serial interface. This product is patented to SONY and warranted to other manufacturers. For the moment, products with MS Cards available in the market are exclusively developed by SONY, including digital cameras, MP3 Player, PDA, Portable Phone combining MP3 Player and Internet access, and PC.
6. Secure Digital Card (SD Card)
The SD Card is 2.1 mm in thickness, and is identical to the
MMC Card in length and width. It also employs a serial interface, and is mainly used in MP3 Players, DSCs, and PDAs.
To take the market share as soon as possible, manufacturers are exerting their best to develop flash memory card driver products to support various flash memory cards described above. However, because existing flash memory cards are different in size and interfaces, most manufacturers choose to add sockets in their flash memory card drivers to support different flash memory cards. Typical flash memory card drivers employ 3 sockets or 4 sockets. Though this solution can overcome the quandary of supporting partial flash memory cards, it brings more problems and inconvenience to consumers, for example:
1. Too much sockets may result in confusion in application: If a flash memory card driver has four sockets to support SM, MMC, MS, and SM cards, for example, the system will only display several marks (i.e., F Socket/G Socket/H Socket/I Socket) in stead of card types (i.e., SM Socket/MMC Socket/MS Socket/SD Socket) when the driver is applied to the system, which makes it difficult to determine the flash memory card currently available.
2. Too much sockets bring inconvenience in application: In above example, if the driver is designed to support IDE/ATPAI interface, only 2 sockets are available at the same time when the driver is connected to the system. (The IDE/ATPAI interface can only support processing two sets of signals at the system end.) If the user accesses to the third flash memory card, the socket can't work, even system halt may occur.
3. Other problems: the flash memory cards or sockets may be damaged when they are misused due to too much sockets; high cost; large size, hard to be embedded etc.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In consideration of shortcomings in the conventional flash memory card driver described above, the inventor invents a combined flash memory card driver, which can solve most existing problems described above.
An object of a combined flash memory card driver of the present invention provides a universal socket for SM, MMC, MS, and SD cards of the similar size and another universal socket for CF cards (Type I and Type II) or PC cards (Type I, Type II, and Type III) to access the information in any of above flash memory cards. Furthermore, the invention can support accessing to all flash memory cards with its transmission unit combining IDE/ATAPI, USB, PCMCIA, and 1394 interfaces.
The purpose of this invention is to support various flash memory cards simultaneously with the one socket or double-socket flash memory card driver implemented according to this invention to facilitate above flash memory cards to communicate more simply and conveniently with portable digital products, PCs, and peripheral equipment as well as bring convenience to consumers and eliminating shortcomings in legacy flash memory card drivers.
Another object of the combined flash memory card driver of the present invention is to facilitate the flash memory card driver being built in easily or externally connected to any of various computer systems and peripheral equipment to meet the demands of consumers and integrate the support to various flash memory cards into one flash memory card driver.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5663553 (1997-09-01), Aucsmith
patent: 5818029 (1998-10-01), Thomson
patent: 6137710 (2000-10-01), Iwasaki et al.
patent: 6168077 (2001-01-01), Gray et al.
patent: 6438638 (2002-08-01), Jones et al.
Chen Chia-Li
Chen Mi-Chang
Liu Wen-Tsung
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