This week’s EYE ON NPI is “aces”, literally! It’s ACES Group’s Vertical MicroSD Card Connectors.

They are great way to increase your enclosure design flexibility, maybe even improve BOM costs by not requiring a separate PCB for mechanical stability.

MicroSD cards are a great way to add gigabytes of data storage for low cost and user-serviceability: they’re available at just about any store – even grocery stores! Cards are usually under $10, and DigiKey stocks a huge variety of speeds and sizes.

The ACES card sockets come in two styles. The MSDV-2008-AKA0T01 is minimal, with the smallest size but no push-push eject – instead you have to pull the card out. The MSDV-2108-BK33T has push-push eject so it’s easier to remove cards, but the overall package is much larger. The minimal one is also less expensive, about $1 in quantity whereas the fancy one is $1.60.

Both come with the promise of accessing a MicroSD card at a perpendicular angle from the PCB – a design we’ve never seen before in a micro SD card holder! Historically, we’ve only seen and used ‘right angle’ style like the MSD-6-A from CUI – and DigiKey stocks tons of variants of MicroSD sockets such as hinged, push-pull, even super-skinny. But, this is the first and only one we’ve ever seen that is ‘vertical’ not right angle, with all pins brought out plus card detection.

The design is well thought-out with through-hole contacts plus 3 extra-wide mechanical stabilizers and a flat plastic seat so that customers jamming cards in off-angle won’t tear the pads off.

We’ve already picked up some of each to make a breakout board so folks can add these to their prototype design, but you shouldn’t wait on us! If you want to add these two unique microSD sockets to your design – order from DigiKey today! They have both the MSDV-2008-AKA0T01 and MSDV-2108-BK33T in stock right now for immediate shipment.

Place your order right now and you’ll be integrating the new ACES Group’s Vertical MicroSD Card Connectors by tomorrow afternoon.

See the video below: