The CompactFlash Association has finally completed their work on rolling out a successor to the hugely popular CompactFlash memory card format, where the successor has been named as XQD, and for it to be worthy of its position, it naturally promises the world – case in point, far higher data transfer speeds compared to what we have today. While CompactFlash managed to hold its own against the SD memory card, it has so far ended up as part of the high-end niche market, and while CompactFlash capacity and transfer speeds still beat SD today, they want to remain ahead of the pack – and the XQD seems to be on the right track.
This new card will rely on the PCI Express data pathway technology which is said to be able to achieve a minimum of 125MB/s, which is a 25% increase thereabouts over today’s top speed of about 100MB/s. The CompactFlash Association did not provide an exact date on when the technology will hit the market, but the design will begin being licensed from early next year onwrds, with Nikon and Canon clearly throwing their weight behind the XQD format.
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