Flash Memory

1. The key part of a USB pen drive is its flash memory.

This memory is a kind of Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM). It is memory that saves data on a chip, before spinning disk. It is nonvolatile, means it can save data with no power.

Flash memory has several functions. Besides being utilized in a USB pen drive, it is utilized in handy gaming systems, MP3 players, digital cameras and many devices.

How It Works

2. A USB pen drive has a USB male connector at one end, and the remaining body is a plastic casing that has a tiny circuit board. The circuit board has some power circuitry, and three Integrated Circuits (ICs), one that interfaces to USB connector, the other that has flash memory and another that supplies as driver for flash memory. It also has a crystal oscillator to control its 12 MHz clock. Crystal oscillators utilize a vibrating crystal that makes an exact electric signal. General crystal utilized in a crystal oscillator is quartz. These are frequently utilized in quartz watches.

It connects into any USB port on PC and is utilized similar to an exterior hard drive. Windows and Macintosh operating systems just allows move files to it and from it the similar way you would move files in folder structure of PC.

USB pen drive companies keep on to increase capacity and speed of their pen drives, which means they will remain a valuable tool for PC users for years to come.