An extended Secure-Digital (SD) card has a second interface that uses some
of the SD-interface lines. The SD card's mechanical and electrical
card-interface is used, but 2 or 4 signals in the SD interface are
multiplexed for use by the second interface. The second interface can
have a single differential pair of serial-data lines to perform
Universal-Serial-Bus (USB) transfers, or two pairs of differential data
lines for Serial-Advanced-Technology-Attachment (SATA), Peripheral
Component Interconnect Express (PCIE), or IEEE 1394 transfers. A
card-detection routine on a host can initially use the SD interface to
detect extended capabilities and command the card to switch to using the
second interface. The extended SD card can communicate with legacy SD
hosts using just the SD interface, and extended SD hosts can read legacy
SD cards using just the SD interface, or extended SD cards using the
second interface. MultiMediaCard and Memory Stick are alternatives.