Spansion Inc. (NYSE: CODE), a leading provider of parallel and serial NOR Flash memory, today announced it has entered volume production of its 512 Mb Spansion® FL-S Serial (SPI) NOR Flash memory featuring the highest-density single-die serial Flash. The Spansion FL-S family spans from 128 Mb to 1 Gb and features an industry-leading programming speed that is three times faster than competing solutions and has 20% faster double data rate (DDR) read performance. The speed improvements are key to enriching the user experience for a growing range of embedded applications, such as automotive instrument clusters and infotainment systems, industrial and medical graphic displays as well as home networking gateways and set-top boxes.
Engineers are choosing Spansion serial Flash memory for its leading performance, automotive grade quality and temperature ranges, support for higher densities, complimentary Flash file system software and long-term product support. Customers are increasingly demanding these attributes for improving the user experience and delivering innovative, graphic-rich, stylish designs.
Specific applications that can benefit from the Spansion FL-S product family include the following:
Automotive: Instrument clusters and infotainment systems, which rely on 3D graphic engines for displaying real-time driver information and demand high reliability, real-time fast rendering and lower pin counts. These capabilities are required for giving consumers stylish designs with improved graphics and an instant on experience with their digital dashboards. Consumer: Home gateways, digital TVs, set top boxes and printers, which require smaller packages in a high-density serial interface and advanced security features to protect content, allowing manufacturers to give their end consumers a secure and instant-on experience. Smart meters: High reliability performance in a cost effective platform for the growing amounts of Flash memory code needed to monitor energy usage. WiMax systems: Increasingly require smaller packages such as BGA with high reliability.
Key Facts/Performance Metrics of the Spansion FL-S family:
The 128 Mb, 256 Mb, and 512 Mb Spansion FL-S products are in production. A 1 Gb dual die solution is also available based on market demand. Industrial and Automotive In-Cabin temperature support (-40C to +85C/+105C) Up to 1.5 MB/s write speed that is three times faster than current SPI solutions in the market, increasing manufacturing throughput and lowering overall costs. 20% faster read performance with up to 66 MB/s for faster execute in place (XiP) operation, surpassing competing solutions by over 20%. Up to five times faster chip erase coupled with the three times faster programming speed dramatically improves chip re-programming time during manufacturing. Industry-standard form-factors via Spansion's Universal Footprint 16-pin SO (300 mil) 8-pin SO (208 mil planned for 128 Mb) 8-lead WSON 6x8 (128 Mb and 256 Mb densities only) 24-ball BGA 6x8 The low pin count simplifies board layout, lowers cost, and reduces the form factor of many embedded designs, reducing to eight pins for a 128Mb SPI Flash device. Expanded security options protect customer IP through 1kByte one-time programmable (OTP) region, individual sector protection, and hardware and software data protection. Unique 128 bit tracking ID for system authentication and additional security. Vio range of 1.65V - 3.6V, Vcc range of 2.7V-3.6V Common Flash Interface (CFI) data for configuration information JEDEC JESD216 Serial Flash Discoverable Parameters (SFDP) support Industry-standard 3 Byte addressing for 128 Mb and extended 32-bit addressing (4 Bytes) for 256Mb and higher densities. Spansion FFS: Customized software drivers and Flash file system software available at no additional cost.
Spansion starts producing highest-density single-die 512Mb serial flash memory
Posted on Wednesday, March 28 2012 @ 20:55 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck