What is the difference between ATA Cards and Linear Cards?
Although ATA cards aim primarily at file storage applications, whereas linear cards mainly target working storage applications, these types of Flash cards do compete for market share in some types of applications (though not directly, since the specific system implementations must differ). When they do compete, the ATA cards have an edge in operating system support, user convenience, ruggedness, reliability, data integrity, dynamic 3.3-V/5-V support, and system simplicity. Linear cards are particularly effective for “execute in place” (XIP) system operation due to their superior random access speed. That speed isn’t meaningful when they are used just to transfer files to main memory for processing by the host system CPU. ATA cards, both PC and CF types, conform to industry standards supported by the UNIX, Windows, MS-DOS, GEOS, PSOP, OS/2, and Apple operating systems. On-card presence detect circuits, and controllers that implement an ATA interface, allow plug & play operation between
