Got X-Scale? Got SD? You have SDIO!

[NMkiD]

Got X-Scale? Got SD? You have SDIO!
Posted by Ed Hansberry @ 05:10 PM

One of my MVP buds, Jared Miniman, also of pocketnow fame, was at CES last week. He had this bit of info to share:

"Throughout CES, I had my MVP hat on. When I had the chance to speak with a marketing guy who had a great deal of engineering expertise (gasp!!), I jumped at the opportunity to get my questions out. I spoke with a rep from SyChip, who are delivering Socket's SD WiFi card to begin shipping in March (I assume most of this is under NDA). He delivered this gem of information:
1. Any XScale processor device will support SDIO without an on-SD-Card clock handler chip. Why? The PXA250 chipset has built-in support for 1-bit (SDIO) SD!
2. Any OMAP processor device will also support SDIO for the same reason. So . . . all the Smartphones announced so far with OMAP--you guessed it--can theoretically support SDIO."

Hell yeah that looks great eh fellas!

[michaelmotorcycle]

That's about the best news I've heard in a Looooong Time!!!!

What the heck is SDIO??

:-/

[Mike C]

IO is COMM man! COMM!!

[MiniM3]

Soooo....this means......ah..ummm..

That the Axim's will can actually use SDIO?

If so, why would they say it doesn't? I'm sure the tech guys aren't a bunch of chimpanzees in smocks.....

:)

[NMkiD]

It means things like this:



SDIO Camera

and this:



SDIO WiFi card

this opens the door fellas, this is good, good news.

[JaxDomino]

I like the camera, but on the Axim, it'll be akward due tothe fact that the SD slot is on the side.

FYI - IO stands for Input/Output and it's what will allow cemera's and WiFi cards and maybe..... a printer!!!


One can always dream!!!

[Forge]

So, um, who's tested this theory?

All along we've been told SD ONLY...

[MiniM3]

ok....before we jump the gun and I cream my pants....why would Dell say that it's not SDIO??? there has to be a reason.

Please confirm.

[JaxDomino]

I would think Dell didn't have the inside knowledge they thought they had. If they had this they would have known that 5-way nav button needs FIVE directions before shipping!

[CalgaryCowboy]

Why are these better then cf devices? Most I have seen are CF.

[missc]

'scuse me - I'm still lost and don't follow. In English what does it mean? Will it be easier to check email and log onto the net? Does it mean it will work with a cell phone to connect to the web? I'm reading all these posts but, ugh....I'm ugh....still not a "true techie". A "wannabe" though ;)

[madamaxim]

I would think Dell didn't have the inside knowledge they thought they had. If they had this they would have known that 5-way nav button needs FIVE directions before shipping!

LOL!

[DennisFranz]

Its good but...

Will taking extended SD memory out to use a perephrial be a hassle?

I mean, I used my SD for memory only now that I thought it was non IO. I use CF for perephrials. I think SD is just a different form factor for items already existing depending on the avilabiliy of the PDA you use (Palm, Toshiba etc) which may only have a SD slot. Are SD products faster in terms of bandwidth to the units BUS?

My point is, if you have a camera in the SD and you primarily use SD for memory expansion and want to take LOTS of pictures, would that be more of a hassle to remove, dump pictures to it from main memory and continue.

I know I can't explain it very well but hopefully you knwo what I am trying to say.

[Forge]

Originally posted by NMkiD@Jan 15 2003, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Got X-Scale? Got SD? You have SDIO! Posted by Ed Hansberry @ 05:10 PM One of my MVP buds, Jared Miniman, also of pocketnow fame, was at CES last week. He had this bit of info to share: "Throughout CES, I had my MVP hat on. When I had the chance to speak with a marketing guy who had a great deal of engineering expertise (gasp!!), I jumped at the opportunity to get my questions out. I spoke with a rep from SyChip, who are delivering Socket's SD WiFi card to begin shipping in March (I assume most of this is under NDA). He delivered this gem of information: 1. Any XScale processor device will support SDIO without an on-SD-Card clock handler chip. Why? The PXA250 chipset has built-in support for 1-bit (SDIO) SD! 2. Any OMAP processor device will also support SDIO for the same reason. So . . . all the Smartphones announced so far with OMAP--you guessed it--can theoretically support SDIO."

Hell yeah that looks great eh fellas!

Here, possibly, is the final piece of this puzzle! I found a reference to this quote on www.pocketpcthoughts.com and here is the comment that follows it:

"Now, this doesn't mean you can stick an SD Bluetooth card in your HP iPAQ h1910, the drivers don't exist yet, but if this info proves to be correct, it means it is just a matter of drivers being written. Very cool. "

Now this makes sense! I'll see what I can come up with to verify this further but it is a reasonable explanation. Dell has already delivered a excellent functionality to us at a great price so if they don't quite mention SDIO capabilities, I can understand it. At this price point, I don't think it would make or break a sale. If somewhere down the road they give us such a driver (if, in fact, that's all there is to it), then we have a nice little bonus on our hands. With the kind of sales they were expecting , the last thing they would need is a bunch of rabid Axim users flooding them with , "When's that driver coming out?!?"

Guess who'll be calling them soon? :)

[andsoitgoes]

It's just like those TiVo units with their built-in yet undisclosed commercial-skip feature. This happens all the time. It's all about driver support. Look at ATi - for the longest time they kept flopping in the video card market not because they had shoddy product, but because so many features in the product were broken or didn't work - just because of the driver support (or lack thereof!)

It may just be that Dell, being new to the market, didn't see it as an asset and decided not to market its features. But from what that article states, if it's XScale, it's SDIO no ifs, ands or buts.

I'm not gonna argue :D