The 2023 Member Conference and Sixth Working Group Plenary Session of Intelligent Terminal Memory Association (ITMA) was successfully concluded on January 11, 2024 in Suzhou, China. A total of 20 member representatives attended the conference for exchange. The conference confirmed that sufficient legal representatives were present, and the main conference topics discussed were as follows:
Topic 1: Introduction to the progress of the association's work
Topic 2: Approval of ITMA Management Procedure Update
Topic 3: Approve the next annual plan of the working group
Topic 4: Adoption of the 2023 audit report
Topic 5: Appointment of auditors: Appointing auditors for next year through Wanxin Certified Public Accountants Co., Ltd
Topic 6: Approval of the Association's Next Year's Budget
Topic 7: Supplementary Election of Directors
Topic 8: ITMA Market Promotion Planning and Exchange
Topic 9: Trademark Authorization Ceremony and Issuance of AAC Member Certificate
Topic 10: Revision of capacitive load standards and revision of TestReport inspection items
Topic 11: Speed up of NM Card based on PCIe protocol
Topic 12: Preparation of Storage Evaluation System
The purpose of ITMA is to bring upstream and downstream together from the perspective of NM cards and define the association for future smart terminal storage. For downstream manufacturers, NM Card products have considerable profits. In the past 2023, due to the rapid decline in storage costs, terminal manufacturers are still hesitant about importing NM cards. However, as NM Cards have addressed capacity expansion issues, such as the release of 512GB capacity in the fourth quarter and 1TB products in the first quarter of this year, mobile devices have begun to show greater interest in NM Card products. After the NM Card capacity is increased to 512GB or higher, the next generation of products must start planning for performance acceleration.
At the same time, ITMA actively explores application areas such as automotive storage and AI storage. The automotive specifications and interface protocols are relatively lacking, and there are greater opportunities to expand the form of storage products in the future. In the future, AI PCs will have increasing demands for storage, and exploring potential opportunities for storage on AI PCs. In AI applications, edge computing has less performance requirements and timeliness than cloud computing. Storage products can provide solutions for cost reduction and efficiency increase of edge computing. As an international standard organization, ITMA should explore and promote new storage protocols and applications, improve storage testing and hardware infrastructure.
At the meeting, the heads of each working group reported a summary of the previous year's work situation and discussed and approved the next year's work plan for each group, engaging in in-depth exchanges on key issues.
The meeting approved the update and addition of regulations to the ITMA management program: Article 46: Membership Payment Rules. By accepting the audit report from the establishment date of the association to June 30, 2023, it was agreed to appoint Wanxin Certified Public Accountants Co., Ltd. as the auditor of ITMA for the following year and approve the association's 2024 budget. The meeting agreed to elect an additional unit for directors: Shenzhen Hongxinyu Electronics Co., Ltd. The meeting approved and announced the list of members for the second A&AC, and the relevant certificates were finally issued at the meeting.