Date: 19/08/2012

5V, 1 Mb serial SRAM with speed of 80 Mbps unveiled by Microchip

Microchip Technology Inc. has announced 5 Volts serial SRAM in 512 Kb and 1 Mb sizes with SPI to achieve speeds up to 80 Mbps via the quad-SPI, or SQI, protocol, providing the zero write-cycle times with the near-instantaneous data movement needed for offloading graphics, data buffering, data logging, displays, math, audio, video and other data-intensive functions.

Battery integrated NVSRAMs 23LCV512 and 23LCV1024 are said to operate with power consumption comparable to FRAM but at lesser cost than FRAM for use in applications such as meters, black boxes and other data recorders, which require unlimited endurance or instantaneous writes along with non-volatile storage.

"Most embedded applications need more RAM at some point during their design. These new 1 Mbit SRAMs enable designers to fill that gap at a much lower cost than moving to a larger microcontroller or processor, and with lower power consumption, pin counts and cost than parallel SRAM," said Randy Drwinga, vice president of Microchip's Memory Products Division. "For applications requiring non-volatile RAM, we've also added our first two devices with battery backup, which are significantly lower cost than any other type of non-volatile RAM."

"The EEPROM market has completely moved to serial interfaces, and the Flash market is rapidly making this transition, due to the higher cost, board space and power consumption of parallel devices. We expect SRAM to follow this trend, and Microchip's serial SRAM portfolio offers compelling options to the embedded market," Drwinga added.

Availability: All six devices from the new serial SRAM family are available in 8-pin SOIC, TSSOP and PDIP packages. The density options are 512 Kbits and 1 Mbit. The two volatile devices – the 23A1024 and 23LC1024 – are available now for sampling and volume production, in 10,000-unit quantities. The 23A512 and 23LC512 are expected to be available for sampling and volume production in October. The two non-volatile devices – the 23LCV512 and 23LCV1024 – will also be available in 10,000-unit quantities, with sampling and volume production expected in October.