The SD Card Association develops and publishes technical standards for SD Card technology, and promotes the use of the technology. SD Cards

Secure Digital card

Secure Digital is a non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Card Association for use in portable devices. The SD technology is used by more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models, and is considered the de-facto industry standard.Secure Digital...

 are compact data storage devices

Non-volatile memory

Non-volatile memory, nonvolatile memory, NVM or non-volatile storage, in the most basic sense, is computer memory that can retain the stored information even when not powered. Examples of non-volatile memory include read-only memory, flash memory, ferroelectric RAM, most types of magnetic computer...

 used to store digital files, such as picture files recorded by digital camera

Digital camera

A digital camera is a camera that takes video or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor. It is the main device used in the field of digital photography...

s. The association was founded on 28 January 2000 by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Panasonic

Panasonic

Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...

), SanDisk Corporation and Toshiba Corporation.

Board members of the association are Canon Inc.

Canon Inc.

is a Japanese multinational corporation that specialises in the manufacture of imaging and optical products, including cameras, camcorders, photocopiers, steppers and computer printers. Its headquarters are located in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan.-Origins:...

, Eastman Kodak Company, Hewlett Packard, Industrial Technology Research Institute

Industrial Technology Research Institute

The Industrial Technology Research Institute is a non-profit research institute located in Taiwan under the supervision of the Republic of China Ministry of Economic Affairs. It conducts research and development in applied technologies to advance private sector growth...

, Infineon Technologies AG, Kingston Technology Company, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Motorola Inc., NEC Corporation, Nokia Corporation, Power Digital Card Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., SanDisk Corporation, Sharp Corporation

Sharp Corporation

is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products. Headquartered in Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan, Sharp employs more than 55,580 people worldwide as of June 2011. The company was founded in September 1912 and takes its name from one of its founder's first...

, Socket Mobile, Inc. and Toshiba Corporation.