Half megabit non-volatile FRAM

"The FM24C512 provides our 256 kilobit FRAM customers with a footprint-compatible upgrade path that doubles their data collection capacity,” says Mike Alwais, Ramtron VP of Marketing. “In particular, many of our metering customers have asked for more FRAM storage capacity to support the trend of collecting more energy consumption data. Having supplied 256 kilobit FRAM products for the largest metering installation in the world, and with new advanced metering infrastructures on the horizon, the 512 kilobit FRAM is a natural extension of our offerings to the meter market.”

The FM24C512 is a 512 kilobit non-volatile RAM with a 2-wire interface that is pin-compatible with industry standard 24C512 EEPROMs for ease of development. The device performs read and writes at bus speeds up to 1MHz for NoDelay™ writes, and operates from a 5-volt power supply, drawing 250 micro amps for reads and writing at 100kHz. This half megabit FRAM offers 45 years of data retention and is rated over the industrial temperature range of -40°C to +85°C.

Ramtron’s FM24C512 is optimised for data collection applications: It reads and writes continuously at bus speeds of up to 1MHz with over 10 billion writes. Similar EEPROM devices require long write delays, polling software, and have endurance limited to less than 1 million write cycles. In addition, this new device features low operating currents.