SanDisk Corporation and Sony Corporation have announced the development of the "Memory Stick PRO-HG" format expanded from the “Memory Stick PRO” format.

"Memory Stick PRO-HG" media offers high performance, using an enhanced 8-bit parallel interface in addition to a conventional serial and 4-bit parallel interface. The interface clock frequency also increases to 60MHz from 40MHz. This means that maximum data transfer speed increases up to 480Mbps, or 60MB/s (theoretical value), three times as fast as that of “Memory Stick PRO” media. The minimum write speed at 8-bit parallel transfer is 120 Mbps, or 15MB/s.

The companies say these enhancements allow large data amounts of up to several gigabytes to be quickly transferred, as well as the real-time recording of high-resolution video and still images.

Since “Memory Stick PRO-HG” is an extended format of the “Memory Stick PRO” format, “Memory Stick PRO-HG” compliant host devices support the conventional “Memory Stick PRO” media as well as “Memory Stick PRO-HG” media. In addition, the “Memory Stick PRO-HG” media can be used with conventional “Memory Stick PRO” compliant host devices as well as “Memory Stick PRO-HG” compliant host devices.

Licensing for the development of “Memory Stick PRO-HG” compliant host devices is scheduled to commence in January 2007.