Novachips, a South Korean memory company, has launched new CFexpress 4.0 memory cards that are expected to be as inexpensive as SD cards. Novachips’ new CFexpress Type A and Type B memory cards range in capacity from 330GB to 3.2 TB, with pricing beginning at $199.

“As all of our CFexpress cards are in-house engineered and manufactured in-house, we can offer these premium cards at much more affordable rates even cheaper than SDs,” according to Novachips. “The Type A Express and Extreme cards are available at a $200-300 price point, which are as affordable as SSDs.”

While some SD cards are quite inexpensive, the fastest UHS-II V90 cards are relatively pricey per GB. For example, a class-leading 512GB SD card costs $499, or nearly a dollar per gigabyte. Another company’s 128GB UHS-II V90 SD card costs $160, which is more expensive per gigabyte.

The new Novachips 330GB Extreme CFexpress 4.0 Type A card costs $199, or approximately $0.60 per gigabyte. The company’s latest 1.6TB “express” line CFexpress 4.0 Type A card costs $329, or around $0.20 per gigabyte. In all situations, the new CFexpress 4.0 Type A cards are VPG 400 certified and CompactFlash Association-approved.

“All of our cards have a custom-developed architecture for maximum heat dissipation, which is crucial for stable recording on cameras,” the company claims. “The faster the card is, the hotter the card gets, therefore, good memory cards must have an architecture to dissipate this heat effectively.”

The Novachip CFexpress 4.0 Type A cards promise read and write rates of up to 1,600 MB/s, while the CFexpress 4.0 Type B cards, which have twice the bandwidth, provide read and write speeds of 3,300 MB/s and 3,200 MB/s, respectively.

“Maximum speed isn’t important in our business; when the cards get heated, their speeds drop. Our engineers are more concerned about a card’s stability than its maximum speed.

The CFepxress Type A cards are available in four capacities, with the sizes varying by product category. The Novachips Extreme cards, which are available in 330GB and 660GB configurations, offer greater performance. The Express cards come in two capacities: 800GB and 1.6TB. The Extreme variants are SLC-based and promise a longer lifespan and faster sustained speeds, whilst the Express cards are TLC-based and promise greater capacity.

“Most CFexpress 4.0 cards are TLC-based, however we provide two options for pros that record and format numerous times per day. For such, our SLC-based Extreme cards will give the necessary lifespan,” Novachips explains.

SLC stands for single-level cell, and flash memory stores single bits of data per physical cell, resulting in greater endurance and dependability at high operating temperatures. TLC, or triple-level cell flash, holds treble bits of data per single cell, resulting in more data density but lower thermal stability. TLC should be suitable for photographers, however SLC may be more stable for extreme video applications. In all circumstances, the new Novachips cards are, as previously stated, VPG 400 certified.

The Novachips CFexpress 4.0 Type B memory cards are also available in Extreme and Express versions, with the Extreme giving a terabyte of capacity and the Express offering an impressive 3.2TB of storage.