Toshiba unveiled the word's first SDXC memory card this week. This SD card will come in 32GB, 16GB and 64GB versions—the latter the largest storage capacity every squeezed onto standard-sized SD memory card.

The reason for the huge jump, a doubling, in gigabytes is the advent of the new "SDXC" specification, released by the SD Association members in April. Founded by Panasonic, SanDisk, and Toshiba in January 2000, the SD Association now has about 1,100 members.

SDXC is the third SD standard. It follows SDHC, which tops out at 32GB. SDCH built on the original SD specification’s 4GB max. The theoretical maximum storage capacity of the SDXC specification is a mind blowing couple of terabytes.

Toshiba's SDXC cards can read data at 60MB/second and write at 35MB/second. The new cards will work on UHS 104-compatible readers.

Toshiba plans to start sampling its 64GB SDXC card in November, with mass production due to following during the spring of 2010.The smaller capacity 16GB and 32GB cards are due to sample a month or two later.

Most smartphones no longer support the original postage stamp-sized SD card format, as manufacturers opted to increasingly go with the considerably smaller pinky nail-sized microSDs. Nonetheless, storage capacities in the former always make their way down to the latter, as both are based on the same SD specification.

So So once full-size SDXC cards start shipping, don't expect it to take too long before you here that 64GB microSDXC cards have begin sampling. We’ll keep you posted.

[via WindowsForDevices]