Ramtron adds serial 512-kilobit F-RAM to V-Family product line

“The FM25V05 offers our customers another density option along with the lower operating voltage and integrated features of Ramtron’s V-Family of F-RAM products,” explains Ramtron Marketing Manager, Duncan Bennett. “Additional devices in the V-Family are planned that will provide our customers with a wide variety of interface and density options for their systems.”

Unlike serial Flash memory or serial EEPROM, the FM25V05 performs write operations at bus speed without write delays. F-RAM allows data to be written immediately to the memory array. Data can be written continuously up to 40 megabits per second. Compared to serial Flash and serial EEPROM, the FM25V05 offers orders of magnitude more endurance and consumes less power.

High-performance F-RAM capabilities make the FM25V05 ideal for nonvolatile memory applications that require frequent or rapid writes or low power operation. Applications range from high frequency data collection where the number of write cycles is critical, to demanding industrial controls where the long write time of serial Flash or EEPROM devices is impractical due to potential data loss.

The FM25V05 has a read-only device ID and can be ordered with a unique serial number and/or system reset option. The device ID provides information about the manufacturer, product density, and product revision of the device. The unique serial number allows the host to have an ID that is different from any other host in the world. The system reset option eliminates the need for an external system reset component in the system.

The FM25V05 operates over the industrial temperature range of -40°C to +85°C, and consumes only 3 milliamps while running at a 40MHz SPI clock rate, 90 microamps during standby, and 5 microamps during sleep mode. The FM25V05 offers a typical active power consumption of 38 microamps per MHz, which is an order of magnitude lower current than similar serial Flash or EEPROM products.