KDDI WiFi B/g microSD Cards Demonstrated

KDDI Corp have been showing off two microSD cards with integrated WiFi b/g in Japan this week.  Although SD cards with integrated WLAN are not uncommon – Eye-Fi is a good example of the technology, used to add wireless photo and video uploads to digital cameras and camcorders – it's more unusual to find the components sufficiently shrunk down to fit on a microSD card.

The two cards, manufactured by Mitsumi Electric Co Ltd and Renesas Technology Corp, are based on a design by KDDI but use different wireless components.  The Mitsumi Electric card, on the left in the image above, relies on Atheros Communications Inc's AR6002 chipset with integrated RF transceiver and baseband processing.  Meanwhile Renesas Technology uses its own KS3021 RF transceiver IC and KS7010 baseband processing IC.

The antenna on both cards is around a third the overall size; none of the companies involved revealed what sort of range users might expect.  KDDI envisage the WiFi microSDs being used to add WLAN wireless to cellphones and other mobile devices, though there's no word on a possible release date nor pricing.