Pen,Drive,How,Did,Come,About,p computer Pen Drive - How Did It Come About?
----------------------------------------------------------Permission is granted for the below article to forward,reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website,offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as longas no changes a Gone are those times when the companies and the organisations didn't need a hi-tech system to handle them. Owing to the considerable increase in the business sector and thus, an enormous increase in the complexity of the organisational struc
A pen drive is a tiny portable data storage device that can be pluggedin to the USB port of any compatible computer. A pen drive consists ofa non-volatile memory, clock-generator, LED indicator and a controller.Some pen drives provide VoIP, mp3 player, fingerprint sensor, passwordprotection and other functions.The technological history of a pen drive began with a CMOS circuit.This low power, high density circuits marked the beginning of digitalintegrated circuits. CMOS circuits are comparable to the BIOS circuitsof today and were responsible for the basic system settings of thecomputer. There was however a major problem with this CMOS circuit. Aconstant power source was necessary to maintain the data.Then there was the advent of the EEPROM chip. This chip overcame thedisadvantage of the CMOS chip but they had a limited lifetime. Thematerials inside the chip wore out with increasing number of writeoperations.This paved the way for the entry of pen drives. Pen drives have flashmemory and so are also called flash drives. Flash memory was originallyinvented by Intel in 1988 and they provided a faster access to data.Flash memory could be used by any electrical application which did notrequire electrical current. M-Systems (SanDisk) were the first to workon this concept in 1998. Initially, SanDisk collaborated with IBM inproducing the pen drive, but later on it bought all the rights andproduced advanced versions of this pen drive.Flash memory was invented by Dr. Fujio Masuoka for Toshiba in 1980.Flash memory can be both NOR and NAND types. NOR-type flash chip wasbrought into the market by Intel in 1988. NOR-based flash memory soongave way to the more affordable NAND-type flash memory. 1989 saw theadvent of NAND flash through Toshiba. Comparatively, NAND had fastererase and write times, greater storage capacities and lower costs.A pen drive uses NAND flash memory chip. NAND chip having storagecapacity of 1 GB was introduced by SanDisk and Toshiba in 2005. Samsungfollowed suit with a 2 GB version followed by 4GB and 8 GB in the nextyear. Today we can get 128 GB memory pen drive in the market!The latest technology to be tested in pen drives is the U3 platform.The security constraint has been greatly overcome by this technology.SanDisk has developed this platform. The pen drive can be madetamper-proof and integrated with passwords for security measures. U3platform in pen drives utilizes ICQ instant messaging software. Thissoftware helps the pen drive owner to email and Google search withease. The LaunchPad interface is enabled inside the pen drive using U3platform. Many different types of software can be loaded in the pendrive using this interface and various jobs can be performed. Theseinclude photo management, password protection, anti-virus, filesynchronization and call-making software.The U3 platform in pen drives has the ability to personalize any PC. Ithas the ability to customize desktop, games web browsers, e-mailprograms, instant messaging and personal preferences. However, filesecurity and data privacy are the most important considerations in pendrives using U3. Its unique password-protect software does not allowany breach of security.Pen drives have thus made a mark for themselves in our lives and arenow irreplaceable. Be it data management, storage, transfer orsecurity; pen drives cannot be done without. Their portability andmulti-utility make them the ideal companion for any computer buff.However, care must be taken to keep it entirely virus-free so that itdoes not transform into a bane from a boon. Article Tags: Flash Memory
Pen,Drive,How,Did,Come,About,p