Samsung has announced in a press release that it has begun mass production of Ultra High Speed-1 microSD cards. The cards work with LTE smartphones and tablets.

"MicroSD with a UHS-1 interface offer users an extremely high level of performance on their LTE smartphones ... This allows consumers to enjoy high-quality images and video playback directly from the memory cards ... Our UHS-1 card demonstrates how Samsung plans to continually expand its line-up of memory cards in accommodating the market need for higher densities and greater performance," Wanhoon Hong, executive vice president of memory sales and marketing at Samsung, said.

The company has also confirmed the cards will come in 16GB sizes. Samsung said a key feature of the new microSD cards is the faster write speed - a maximum speed of 80MB/s. Current microSD cards have a read speed of 21MB/s, or about four times less.

The South Korean tech giant also said cards that offer bigger sizes and the same speeds are coming, presumably 32GB variants at the least.

However, The Register wonders whether the new microSD cards will be a success. Cloud storage is rolling out across a range of operating systems and devices: Apple is pushing iCloud as a way of moving media between devices, rather than using microSD cards, for example. "If data streaming becomes the norm then [m]icroSD card support may never become the standard on tablets," The Register reported.

"It [the card] is comprised of Samsung's 20-nanometer-class 64 gigabit (Gb) toggle DDR 2.0 devicesand an advanced Samsung controller supporting the ultra fast UHA-1 interface," Samsung said in the press release.

The Samsung statement said production began late March, though neither a price nor release date has been revealed.

It's possible Samsung will release the Samsung Galaxy S3 along with the new microSD card, considering the "S" devices are high-end and flagship products. Samsung was due to reveal the device back at MWC this year, but later pulled it out.

(reported by Jonathan Charles, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)