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SanDisk has released the world's first 32GB microSD card, delivering a huge boost to the storage capacity of devices such as smartphones.
The 32GB card is built using a 32nm production process - the same process used to deliver Intel's latest generation of processors. The 11 x 15 x 1mm card consists of eight 4GB memory chips stacked vertically on top of one another, in a quite extraordinary feat of miniaturisation.
The card itself weighs only 0.5g. Given that it's being sold at a suggested retail price of £145, that means it's worth roughly 12 times its weight in gold, according to the latest gold prices quoted by Wolfram Alpha.
The new card doubles the storage capacity of the microSD format, which previously topped out at 16GB. Samsung has also announced a 32GB microSD card based on 30nm technology, but it's yet to appear on the market.
The SanDisk card will go on sale immediately from the company's website, with SanDisk beginning to take orders from smartphone manufacturers now.