The CompactFlash Association has announced a new specification that brings 48-bit addressing, which increases the current capacity limitation of 137GB to 144PB -- as in petabyte. For the mathematically impaired, that breaks down to around 150 million gigabytes, or six million single layer Blu-ray discs. It also supports up to 32MB per transfer action, compared to 128KB today.

Obviously current data densities can't reach the ceiling of CompactFlash 5.0, but there are other new features to get excited about. The CFA says Revision 5.0 brings an optional quality of service framework that guarantees a certain level of performance and prevents dropping frames, more efficient cleanup of unused space, a new electrical design that better complies with ATA standards, and updated ATA references to ATA-6 and ATA-8/ACS-2.

There's no mention of when CompactFlash 5.0 cards will ship, but interested parties can learn more about the revision here (PDF), or download the specification for $100.