Ramtron expands high density FRAM family with a 2-megabit device

“This is Ramtron’s second FRAM device to emerge from the Texas Instruments/Ramtron partnership and the next product in a family of high density, stand-alone FRAM memories,” says Duncan Bennett, Ramtron Strategic Marketing Manager. “The FM21L16 offers a cost-effective alternative to MRAM, battery-backed SRAM (BBSRAM), and NVSRAM. Besides providing a low-cost solution and a small footprint, FRAM consumes much less active and standby power than MRAM and does not require a battery or an on-board capacitor to back up data, as do BBSRAM and NVSRAM, respectively.”

A 128K x 16 non-volatile memory with an industry standard parallel interface, the FM21L16 reads and writes at bus speed with endurance of at least 100 trillion writes and more than 10 years of data retention. The device has an access time of 60 nanoseconds (ns), a cycle time of 110ns and includes an advanced write protection scheme to prevent inadvertent writes and data corruption.

The 2Mb FRAM is a drop-in replacement for standard asynchronous SRAMs that does not need a battery to back up data, which significantly improves component and system reliability. Unlike battery-backed SRAM, the FM21L16 is a true surface-mount solution that does not require rework steps for battery attachment and is not jeopardised by moisture, shock and vibration.

With an industry-standard parallel interface to current high performance microprocessors, the FM21L16 features a high speed page mode that enables a peak bandwidth of 80-megabytes/second, providing one of the fastest non-volatile memory solutions on the market. The device boasts lower operating currents than standard SRAMs, drawing 18 milliamps for reads/writes, and an ultra low power sleep mode of 5 microamps. It operates from 2.7 volts to 3.6 volts over the entire industrial temperature range of -40ºC to +85 ºC.