Who really invented the thumb drive?: The Ubiquitous USB Gadget is the Brainchild of an Unsung Singapore Inventor

Stevens, Hallam

Abstract

In 2000, at a trade fair in Germany, an obscure Singapore company called Trek 2000 unveiled a solid-state memory chip encased in plastic and attached to a Universal Serial Bus (USB) connector. The gadget, roughly the size of a pack of chewing gum, held 8 megabytes of data and required no external power source, drawing power directly from a computer when connected. It was called the ThumbDrive. That device, now known by a variety of names—including memory stick, USB stick, flash drive, as well as thumb drive—changed the way computer files are stored and transferred. Today it is familiar worldwide.

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IEEE Spectrum

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1939-9340

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Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

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DOI

10.1109/MSPEC.2023.10040548