Is this the industry's fastest SPI NOR flash memory?

With the rapid development of the IoT, the focus of automotive electronics has shifted from audiovisual and entertainment functions to smart cars and vehicle networking and the content of ICT used in automobiles is increasing steadily. According to a survey conducted by IC Insights, automotive electronics will show strong growth over the period from 2013 to 2018, with a compound annual growth rate of up to 10.8%, surpassing the 5.5% growth rate in the overall IC market. Additionally, the IEK Centre at the Industrial Technology Research Institute predicts that the worldwide market for automotive electronics, estimated at $167bn in 2013, will double to around $301.1bn by 2019, attracting the attention of new system providers from around the globe.

Macronix has a strong history in continually providing solutions to meet the emerging needs of the automotive market. As many automotive applications exceeded the performance needs of traditional Quad (x4) I/O SPI solutions, Macronix introduced their first x8 I/O SPI solution in the form of the Dual Quad MX66L-85G series and now, taking the performance to the next level, Macronix is introducing this year the Octaflash MX25UM family, with SPI backwards compatibility.

OctaFlash is the next-gen series of NOR Flash memory based on the SPI interface and traditional SPI command sets and expands the current I/O from x4 to x8. OctaFlash is backwards compatible with traditional x1 I/O SPI interfaces, allowing users to easily continue to use the industry standard SPI, thereby minimising design costs as compared with other products on the market which adopt a completely new interface.

Meeting the ever-increasing demand for vehicle telematics bandwidth, OctaFlash provides the fastest read access operation frequency in the industry, 200MHz, and supports both double transfer rate and single transfer rate configurations. Compared to the current Quad (x4 I/O) SPI NOR, OctaFlash has twice the I/O and twice the operating frequency, increasing overall efficiency by four times with a maximum transfer rate of 400MB/s.

OctaFlash also has the most comprehensive DTR protocol support in the industry. Input and output cycles of all commands, addresses and information support DTR mode, overcoming the inconvenience of traditional SPI which only supports the STR framework for command input and needs to switch between different protocol modes. Similarly, prior SPIs only supported STR mode when performing program or erase operations and only supported DTR mode when reading, while today's OctaFlash supports DTR mode for all three operations, saving the time needed to switch between modes.

The current x1 I/O requires 40 clock cycles for complete SPI access including executing commands, addresses and information, while Quad I/O requires 22 clock cycles. In comparison, the next-gen OctaFlash in DTR operation mode needs only 13 clock cycles, significantly reducing the read latency of SPI products and increasing the efficiency of functions such as execute-in-place.

OctaFlash aids functional safety design in support of ISO 26262 OctaFlash’s specifications and reliability will help both Tier 1 suppliers and automakers alike meet the requirements of the ISO 26262 standard, a functional safety standard for automobile control systems.

Sampling of OctaFlash has been released in October 2015 to meet the urgent demand by top-tier automakers looking to enhance the performance of existing and introduce new ISO 26262-compliant vehicles.

For packaging, OctaFlash uses the industry standard 24-ball BGA packaging format and continues to use Quad SPI and Dual-Quad SPI standard pin-out patterns, allowing users to easily transfer to the new SPI models and also has a convenient hardware and PCB routing design.

Furthermore, in order to meet the demand for high speed access, OctaFlash has a Data Strobe Pin, which allows for effective execution of high speed access.

The OctaFlash product line uses Macronix's advanced 55nm production technology, and offers both 1.8 and 3V options, covering 256MB, 512MB and 1GB densities.