Microchip Reveals Superfast SRAM Modules
Microchip Technology Inc. has expanded its serial SRAM portfolio with four new devices, which the firm says, feature the industry's largest densities and speeds.
They are also claimed to be the industry's first with 5V operation, which remains prevalent in automotive and industrial applications. These 512 Kb and 1 Mb SPI devices feature low power consumption and small, 8-pin packages at a starting cost of $1.16 each in 10,000-unit quantities.
Speeds of up to 80 Mbps are achieved via the quad-SPI, or SQI, protocol, providing the zero write-cycle times with near instantaneous data movement needed for offloading graphics, data buffering, data logging, displays, math, audio, video and other data-intensive functions.
Two additional family members, the 23LCV512 and 23LCV1024, offer cost-effective options for non-volatile, unlimited-endurance RAM, via battery backup.
In fact, with their fast dual-SPI (SDI) throughput of 40 Mbps and low active and sleep currents, these serial NVSRAM devices feature high-speed operation without the high pin counts of parallel NVSRAM, and comparable power consumption to FRAM, all at a fraction of the price.
This is beneficial for applications such as meters, black boxes and other data recorders, which require unlimited endurance or instantaneous writes along with non-volatile storage.
"Most embedded applications need more RAM at some point during their design. These new 1 Mbit SRAMs enable designers to fill that gap at a much lower cost than moving to a larger microcontroller or processor, and with lower power consumption, pin counts and cost than parallel SRAM," said Randy Drwinga, vice president of Microchip's Memory Products Division. "For applications requiring non-volatile RAM, we also added our first two devices with battery backup, which are significantly lower cost than any other type of non-volatile RAM."
"The EEPROM market has completely moved to serial interfaces, and the Flash market is rapidly making this transition, due to the higher cost, board space and power consumption of parallel devices. We expect SRAM to follow this trend, and Microchip's serial SRAM portfolio offers compelling options to the embedded market," Drwinga added.
Microchip is creating a PICtail daughter board, which it expects to make available in February 2013, for use with its Explorer series of modular PIC microcontroller development boards, as well as the XLP 16-bit Development Board. This daughter board will demonstrate the features of both the volatile and non-volatile devices in Microchip's new serial SRAM family, enabling designers to quickly evaluate them.
All six devices from the new serial SRAM family are available in 8-pin SOIC, TSSOP and PDIP packages. The density options are 512 Kbits and 1 Mbit.
Pricing starts at $1.16 each in 10,000-unit quantities for the four volatile devices. The 23A1024 and 23LC1024 are available now for sampling and volume production.
The 23A512 and 23LC512 are expected to be available for sampling and volume production in October. The two non-volatile devices"”the 23LCV512 and 23LCV1024"”start at $1.32 each in 10,000-unit quantities, with sampling and volume production expected in October.
