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SanDisk is now shipping a 1 gigabyte (GB) Secure Digital card, doubling the previous storage high for SD cards from 512 megabytes. The price of the new SD card is $500.

With a 1GB SD card users can carry, for example, about 200 mp3 files or 30 hours of music, 1000 pictures, or three feature length moves. The 1GB SD card was first announced last March and was slated to be due in the fall but was delayed. Look for another 1GB SD card from Taiwan-based Silicon Power later this month

According to SanDisk, the 1GB SD card contains a unique "stackable" packaging technology jointly implemented with Sharp Corporation of Japan. This new package employs a low-cost, high-yielding die-stacking process that is designed to enable SanDisk to double the memory capacity without increasing the size of the card.

Back in December, the NPD Group released a report showing that SD passed the CompactFlash format to take the top position in market share among memory cards with 30% of the U.S. flash memory market against 28.8% for the CompactFlash Card. In third place was Memory Stick, with a 22% market share.

In related news, it looks like we're going to have to wait a little longer for SandDisks Wi-Fi SD card for Palm OS devices. Originally supposed to ship this quarter, SanDisk says its Wi-Fi SD card for Palm OS 5 devices won't hit stores until the second quarter. A Pocket PC edition came out last summer.