New 1 Mbit And 2 Mbit SPI FRAM Products From Fujitsu Semiconductor

Guaranteeing 10 trillion (10¹³) read-write cycles – a figure ten times higher than offered by existing chips – the two new FRAM products are ideal for applications such as smart meters, industrial machinery and medical devices. Compared to identical-density EEPROM, MB85RS1MT and MB85RS2MT reduce power consumption by 92 percent for writing operations. The new FRAM products can also make substantial reductions to component costs, mounting footprint and power consumption by replacing all of the technologies required for the system – typically consisting of EEPROM, SRAM and a battery – by single chip. As a result, FRAM strongly promotes the development of smaller systems that are more power-efficient and maintenance-friendly.

In applications such as measurement devices, industrial machinery and medical devices (e.g. hearing aids), the new 1 Mbit and 2 Mbit SPI FRAM products offer an alternative that is both considerably faster and less power-hungry than EEPROM at high density levels – resulting in systems with improved performance, better data security and a longer battery life.

For industrial machinery applications – where SRAM and EEPROM are used in parallel for storing data and parameters respectively – the new FRAM products can unify the two memory technologies. The simplified system architecture of the resulting single technology offers major customer benefits: less risk of errors in the field, reduced component count, smaller PCB footprint and reduced maintenance effort for battery replacement.

As a memory format, FRAM features both non-volatility and random access. With its fast writing speed, FRAM can safely store data immediately at sudden power outages, thus ensuring system data integrity. Exploiting this capability, FRAM products from Fujitsu Semiconductor have been widely employed in factory automation, measurement devices, banking terminals and medical devices since their launch in 1999.

Looking to the future, Fujitsu Semiconductor will continue to deliver new solutions that assist customers in improving end product performance, facilitate maintenance on systems in operation and minimise risk.