Texas Instruments usage of FRAM has significantly improved the power utilization of many microcontroller applications. These micros still have on-chip SRAM but they replace flash storage with FRAM that has a faster write speed and does not suffer from flash memory’s limited write lifetime. FRAM lifetime is rated in trillions of cycles. This allows FRAM to be used for code and data (see “Microcontroller Utilizes FRAM For Code And Data”).
The challenges for developers in the past has been to choose an FRAM-based MSP430 microcontroller that had the proper resources for an application but the selection was limited in terms of memory space and often peripheral complement. The new MSP430 FR59xx/69xx series (Fig. 1) greatly expands the number of SKUs. They also fill out the peripheral and memory complement including support for a 12-bit 16-channel ADC, LCD interfaces and 256-bit AES encryption hardware accelerator.
FRAM-based solutions are also much better for in-field upgrades that are more common with the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT). The write bandwidth of 8 Mbytes/s is significantly faster than flash memory that is about 14 Kbytes/s. FRAM also eliminates flash memory’s pre-erase cycle. The higher bandwidth allows real time logging for many applications. The 2 Kbytes of SRAM is only needed for data that needs even more throughput.
source: http://electronicdesign.com/microcontrollers/low-power-microcontroller-has-128-kbytes-fram
Comments are closed.
