The ExpressCard Standard 2.0 standard has been officially released by PCMCIA, the technology trade association for PC Card and ExpressCard technology. The new ExpressCard Standard will support transfer rates ranging from two to 10 times faster than ExpressCard Standard 1.2, depending on the data protocol used. Some of the applications that benefit from the improved performance are:
- Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) 2.0 adapters supporting large file transfers between computers and various storage devices;
- USB 3.0 adapters supporting large file transfers between computers and peripheral devices;
- Very high-performance streaming media and video adapters; and
- Very high-performance storage modules based on flash memory technologies, e.g. solid-state drive applications.
The ExpressCard Standard is based on the advanced serial I/O technologies, PCI Express and USB. The Standard is being updated to comply with the recent release of the PCI Express specification, Version 2.0, which offers transfer rates of up to 5Gbps, two times faster than its previous version. The ExpressCard 2.0 Standard also supports the new USB 3.0 specification released today. SuperSpeed USB will support speeds of up to 10 times faster than Hi-Speed USB.http://www.expresscard.orghttp://www.pmcia.org
