What is the difference between CF cards and SmartMedia cards?
When a CF card is compared to a SmartMedia card, the SmartMedia card has a per-card cost advantage at its density points. But that cost edge disappears quickly when the bigger picture is considered. Much greater development resources are required to design a product to accept a SmartMedia card than are be needed to design the product to accept a CF card. The SmartMedia card imposes extra hardware and software requirements on all products in which it is used. A host system (a camera, for example) needs a controller, and so does a retrieval system such as a PC. Other factors must also be considered when evaluating SmartMedia cards versus CF cards: The SmartMedia card doesn’t guarantee compatibility across vertical and horizontal markets. It supports either 5-V or 3.3-V systems (not both), and it requires software that depends on the type of Flash chip used, thereby limiting compatibility. The SmartMedia card also mandates software licensing fees for the host system, requires extra ROM an
