JEDEC debuts new Serial Nor Flash standard

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the availability of JESD216: Serial Flash Discoverable Parameters (SFDP) for Serial NOR Flash. Widely anticipated by software engineers, the SFDP will allow Serial Flash manufacturers to embed a standard description of important device characteristics inside the Flash chip. Users can read the description and obtain critical information about the functional characteristics and capabilities of SFDP compliant Flash memory devices, which will enable user applications such as mobile phones, set-top boxes, HDTVs, PC/NB motherboards, or any system that needs to support multiple Serial NOR Flash device types, to configure themselves to handle various Serial Flash implementations. JESD216 is available for free download at www.jedec.org.

JESD216 provides a consistent method of describing the functional and feature capabilities of Serial Flash devices in a standard set of internal parameter tables. These parameter tables can be interrogated by host system software to enable adjustments needed to accommodate divergent features from multiple vendors. In this way, SFDP offers more flexibility in vendor selection, reduces engineering resources for firmware upgrades, and shortens the time to bring products to market. The value of SFDP mirrors and enhances that of the Common Flash Interface (CFI) for Parallel Flash.

DY Lee, Chairman of JEDEC’s JC-42.4 Subcommittee for Non-Volatile Memory noted, “As adoption of Serial Flash has grown, software engineers have been looking forward to a standard that would facilitate communication between devices and host system software. JEDEC’s JC-42.4 Subcommittee is pleased to provide a solution to this pressing industry need.”