SD Association Announces MicroSD Express at MWC 2019

Up to 985 MB/sec Transfer Rate

The SD association announced the new SD Express standard 8 months ago. This brings significantly faster transfer rates to the popular memory card standard. Specifically, users can expect these SD Express cards to reach maximum data transfer rates of up to 985MB/s. Furthermore, it offers higher capacity as well with up to 128TB. All while retaining the same compact form factor.

Now they have extended the same speed down to compact MicroSD cards with the MicroSD Express standard. Like SD Express, microSD Express uses the PCIe interface and the NVMe upper layer protocol enables advanced memory access mechanism, enabling a new world of opportunities for mobile devices.

“microSD Express gives the mobile industry a compelling new choice to equip mobile devices with removable SSDs,” said Hiroyuki Sakamoto, SDA president. “SD 7.1 prepares consumers and mobile device manufacturers to meet ever increasing storage demands for years to come.”

microSD Express uses the well-known PCIe 3.1 and NVMe v1.3 specifications defined by PCI-SIG® and NVM Express, respectively, on the second row of pins. PCIe 3.1 includes the low power sub-states (L1.1, L1.2) enabling low power implementations of SD Express for the mobile market.

Where Can I Learn More About This New MicroSD Standard?

Along with the announcement, the SD Association has released a whitepaper detailing MicroSD express. This provides performance figures as well as a technical overview in a single PDF document.

The SD association also has a video providing an overview of Express standards available below.