Current and future developments

Semiconductor corporations have worked to reduce the cost of the components in a flash drive by integrating various flash drive functions in a single chip, thereby reducing the part-count and overall package-cost.

Flash drive capacities on the market increase continually. As of 2008^[update] few manufacturers continue to produce models of 256 MB and smaller; and many have started to phase out 512 MB capacity flash memory. High-speed has become a standard for modern flash drives and capacities of up to 64 GB have come on the market.^[24]

Lexar is attempting to introduce a USB FlashCard ^{[25] [26]}, which would be a compact USB flash drive intended to replace various kinds of flash memory cards. Pretec introduced a similar card, which also plugs into every USB port, but is just one quarter the thickness of the Lexar model ^[27] SanDisk has a product called SD Plus, which is a SecureDigital card with a USB connector.^[28]

SanDisk has also introduced a new technology to allow controlled storage and usage of copyrighted materials on flash drives, primarily for use by students. This technology is termed FlashCP.