March 01, 2004

After breaking the density barrier for MMC and SD cards by mass production of its 1GigaByte products, PDC (Power Digital Card) announces new technologies to enhance the speed performance of its memory cards. PDC's high speed SD cards are tested to have write speeds of over 8.6MegaBytes/second (MB/Sec) and read speeds of over 10MB/Sec. PDC's new high speed SD card series have been tested in the market since early December 2003 and has been ranked highly by users. Release of the products on a worldwide level will begin in January of 2004. PDC's high speed and standard SD cards will co-exist in the market, allowing consumers to match their difference in needs.

According to Gen Shueh, Chief Strategy Officer of PDC, "Today's average consumers are really not aware of the different speed performance of existing SD cards on the market. But as digital devices become more demanding for performance, the read and write speed of SD cards will become a major issue to consumers other than pricing and brand recognition. This will be especially true for card usage with digital visual devices as digital camera, digital camcorder, MP4 players, game consoles, digital TV's etc. PDC's release of high density and fast performing cards has opened the door for device manufacturers to design products fully based on SD cards. Today's SD cards already have speed performances exceeding Compact Flash cards and with the introduction of PDC's 1GB SD cards, CF no longer holds high-density advantage. Engineers are now free to design products fully transitioning from CF to SD. PDC's 2GB and 4GB SD Cards are expected to be released soon, making SD the choice of external memory for device manufacturers. Most of the current SD Card products on the market today have statements in regards to speed as: up to 10MB/Sec. But to the consumer, what does this actually mean? Is it 2MB/Sec, 4MB/Sec, really 10MB/Sec, or SD's theoretical speed of 10MB/Sec? No one knows. Most of the time, consumers have no way of telling actual speed performance at point of purchase and may unwarily be purchasing a low performance card while thinking the card is operating at 10MB/Sec. There are many reasons for the variance of speed performance in memory cards as different flash used (single layer cell, multi-layer cell, etc.) and different design rules of controller technology. Usually the consumer is not informed of all this background during purchase and the "up to 10MB/Sec statement" is very misleading. To protect consumer rights, PDC will be clearly marking its products on speed performance and encouraging other brands to follow the practice; thus, allowing consumers to identify the actual speed performance of SD cards at point of purchase."

PDC's high speed SD cards are manufactured with its state-of-art, patented injection process technology in line with its standard SD cards. The high speed SD cards are also tested to be totally water-proof, shock-proof, dust-proof, and ESD-proof. All cards are loaded with CPRM encryption keys in case the consumer requires downloading of protected contents into the memory card.

PDC's specialized manufacturing process allows it to manufacture cards with industrial grade quality yet offered at consumer prices. PDC's cards are currently being used in car environments for MP3/MP4 applications and the company continues to enhance its efforts to target military grade qualities. PDC's high speed SD series will allow specific users to upgrade their tastes in high performing cards and at the same time, satisfy the average user with its standard SD series.

About Power Digital Card Co., Ltd. (PDC)
A Taiwan based company, Power Digital Card was founded in Nov. of 1998. The company started research and development on the manufacturing of memory cards in early 1999. Having significant results by 2000, Power Digital Card filed numerous patents around the world on its Injection Production Process. The Injection Production Process is an automated process to manufacture memory cards, fortifying the card body to ensure product quality. Power Digital Card is member of the MMCA and SDA and is one of the leading memory card manufacturers in the world today. For more information on PDC, visit: http://www.pdcom.com.tw .