SD was designed to compete with the Memory Stick, a DRM product Sony had released the year before. The card was derived from the MultiMediaCard (MMC) and provided digital rights management (DRM) based on the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) standard and a high memory density.

In 1999, SanDisk, Panasonic (Matsushita), and Toshiba agreed to develop and market the Secure Digital (SD) memory card. History 1999–2005: Creation and introduction of smaller formats It uses several SD-3C-owned trademarked logos to enforce compliance with its specifications and denote compatibility. As of 2023, the SDA has approximately 1,000 member companies. In January 2000, the companies formed the SD Association (SDA), a non-profit organization to create and promote SD Card standards. The three companies formed SD-3C, LLC, a company that licenses and enforces intellectual property (IP) rights associated with SD memory cards and SD host-and-ancillary products. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by SanDisk, Panasonic (Matsushita) and Toshiba as an improvement on MultiMediaCards (MMCs). Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary, non-volatile, flash memory card format the SD Association (SDA) developed for use in portable devices. Portable devices, such as digital cameras and mobile phones (including most smartphones)