Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung have emerged as key members of a new group that will make removable storage in their devices completely interchangeable.

The Universal Flash Storage memory cards will be built to a common standard, and are claimed to cut the transfer time for a 4GB file from three minutes to just a few seconds.

"This collaborative effort will provide the industry with an open standard mass-memory solution with optimal performance and interoperability," said Seppo Lamberg, senior vice president of technology platforms at Nokia.

The handset manufacturers are joined in the alliance by Micron Technology, Spansion, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments. The cards will be used in consumer electronics devices as well as phones.

The Universal Flash Storage standard was proposed by the Jedec Solid State Technology Association, which aims to promote compatibility in the chip and components sector. The cards will arrive in 2009.

"STMicroelectronics' Flash Memory Group has been a strong believer in this approach, and we are pleased to contribute to this important standardisation activity," said Giuseppe Crisenza, Nand Flash group general manager at ST.

"We think that this universal standard will cover the needs of the embedded and removable markets for many years."