Microchip's Stand-Alone Serial SRAM Devices

21st January 2009

ES Admin

0 0

Microchip has announced a family of 8- and 32-kByte stand-alone serial SRAM devices designed to increase a system’s available RAM through adding small, inexpensive external devices. The 23A640, 23K640 (23 x 640), 23A256 and 23K256 (23 x 256) devices feature a familiar, industry standard SPI interface, providing increased design flexibility while reducing design and production costs.

Many embedded applications require volatile RAM for temporary data storage, or for use as a scratchpad, for bulk processing and for math algorithms. In many cases, this RAM is embedded within the microcontroller (MCU). In the past, the most viable way to add more RAM was to buy a larger MCU, which could add unnecessary feature overhead and increase design costs. The only alternative was to add large, parallel-access RAM devices that use up large numbers of I/O pins.

Microchip’s serial SRAM devices provide a simple, inexpensive way for designers to add more RAM to their application while keeping the same MCU or, as they require fewer MCU I/O resources, even using a smaller MCU. The serial RAM devices require just four I/O pins as opposed to 16 or 24 pins for a parallel RAM. Additionally, the devices feature a bus speed of 20MHz for fast access, and low operating and standby currents to help extend battery life.

The 23A640 and 23A256 devices have an operating voltage range of 1.7 – 1.95V. The 23K640 and 23K256 devices have an operating voltage range of 2.7 – 3.6V.

Microchip’s serial SRAM devices are all available in 8-pin SOIC, PDIP and TSSOP packages.