Pretec today announced an 8GB SDHC card, which the company claims is the highest capacity SD card announced so far. Pretec expects mass production of the device by the end of the year.

According to the manufacturer, the card meets all SDHC (SD 2.0) specifications, with access speed as fast as 20 MB/s. Because the Secure Digital Alliance limits the capacity of regular SD (SD 1.0/1.1) cards to 4 GB, SDHC is the only secure digital card format that can officially accommodate such a large capacity. Pretec was one of the key players in the Mu-Card Alliance that will allow SDHC cards to eventually reach capacities of up to 2 TB.

The Pretec 8 GB SDHC card is currently available for "key customer sampling" and a unit price of $299. Commercial availability is scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year.

Pretec said that it is also working on an SD-Tuner which will allow for an easy transition between the old SD and the new SDHC formats.