Ramtron’s F-RAM wins EDN China’s Industry Innovation award

“We are delighted to have received this prestigious industry recognition from EDN China,” said Alex Tsui, Ramtron Director of Sales, Asia Pacific. “It is particularly pleasing that our product has been selected by China’s electronic design community. The 4Mb F-RAM has broken new technological ground that is carrying Ramtron and F-RAM into new and innovative applications. China’s design engineers have acknowledged this technological achievement with their vote for the FM22L16.”

Product finalists were selected by a panel of EDN China judges consisting of industry experts and specialists from China’s leading OEM companies, academic institutes, universities and EDN China’s editorial board. Readers of EDN China were invited to choose the winners.

The FM22L16 is the highest-density F-RAM product, with quadruple the F-RAM memory capacity available to date. A 4Mb, 3-volt, parallel nonvolatile RAM in a 44-pin thin small outline plastic (TSOP) package, the FM22L16 features fast access, virtually unlimited read/write cycles, and low power consumption. Pin-compatible with asynchronous static RAM (SRAM), the 4Mb F-RAM targets industrial control systems such as robotics, network and data storage applications, multi-function printers, auto navigation systems, and a host of other SRAM-based system designs.

The FM22L16 is organised as a 256K x 16 nonvolatile memory, accessed with an industry standard parallel interface. Access time is 55ns and cycle time is 110ns. The device reads and writes at bus speed for NoDelay™ writes with endurance of at least 1e14 (100-trillion) writes and 10-year data retention.

The 4Mb F-RAM is a drop-in replacement for standard asynchronous SRAMs, but far superior as it does not need a battery to back up data, which significantly improves component and system reliability. Unlike battery-backed SRAM, the FM22L16 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 FM22L16 features a high-speed page mode that enables a peak bandwidth of 80 megabytes/second, providing one of the fastest nonvolatile memory solutions on the market. The device boasts a lower operating current than standard SRAMs, drawing 18 milliamps for reads/writes, and an ultra low current sleep mode of 5 microamps. It operates from 2.7V to 3.6V over the industrial temperature range (-40 degrees C to +85 degrees C).

“The team at Ramtron is extremely proud of this award from EDN China,” continued Tsui. “The award-winning FM22L16 moves F-RAM technology onto a proven mainstream process node developed in cooperation with Texas Instruments. F-RAM is an ideal nonvolatile memory solution with potential to alter the memory landscape, especially on this new CMOS process, which offers many new stand-alone and integrated product opportunities. EDN China’s readers’ vote of confidence in the FM22L16 is very encouraging.”