Previously working card End-Of-Life with no replacement solution

An OEM customer had a system using a competitor's product since it was the only card that functioned in this particular legacy system. This was not an issue until they went to purchase their next production requirement and found the cards were EOL (End-Of-Life) and no longer available.

They tested numerous other company's flash cards, but could not find one which worked in this particular system. A logical next step would be to rewrite their software to accommodate a generic card based on the industry standard, but there were two issues with this approach.

The original development engineer who designed this product 6 years earlier had not been with the company for several years and was unable to be contacted to consult on this design. Secondly, there was a large installed base of products that needed to function with the new replacement SD cards as an occasional field issue needed to be resolved.

Cactus offered to analyze the system in our lab. After thorough testing and review it was determined the issue could be resolved in the card itself. The system was looking for a special format and would not operate without it.

A custom part number was created to include this preloaded format which resolved this issue.

Another part of this OEM's requirement was the ability to apply their own label since they brand their products for several different customers.

To accommodate this need, Cactus shipped a no label SD Card to them and laser etched the part number and date/config code on the opposite side for tracking and traceability purposes.

Talk to a Cactus Expert if you would like us to review a similar issue you may be having.

Steve Larrivee has over 30 year's experience in the data storage market, including 5 years at Seagate Technology and 10 years at SanDisk. He joined Cactus Technologies Limited as an equity partner and Co-Founded Cactus USA in 2007 with partner Tom Aguillon. Learn more about Steve on LinkedIn.