Obsolescence of Low power static rams

Srams of this size have been very hard to get in dip32 packages for a while now, I didn't realise SOIC pakages were going the same way. If you have an ongoing need for them think about a lifetime purchase while you can still get them.

Unfortunately it's not just the DIP and SOIC packages: Samsung just stops making low power SRAM. And I've been told they had 50-60% market share and as a consequence, all SRAM from other manufacturers is currently, or will soon be, on alllocation.

This is a real pain. You can not replace low power SRAM in battery backed applications. And in most cases, a (small) SRAM is the easiest to put next to a small(ish) microcontroller. Only the bigger type have an SDRAM interface.

Any ideas what would be the best to design in for current/future products that require battery backup RAM or just small amounts of memory?

There is always Ramtron's FRAM - probably not for the very low price of

Or a couple of small Serial memories ? : Use a small FRAM as level 1 Cache, and a larger Dataflash ( eg Atmel AT26xx ) as main storage.

Still, I am sure others can ramp quite quickly to fill the void, so longer term this is not likely to be a big hurdle. (within favoured packages )

I also see a trend to spec "WV" parts, which can be used in both

-jg

Have you considered the FRAM parts from Ramtron

Mark Borgerson

DO the ramtron devices still have a total cycle limit ? (Not just a write cycle limit) i.e. if one uses them to execute code from, they do not last very long.

Regards Anton Erasmus

I remember a write cycle limit in earlier versions, but that seems to have been eliminated in the latest chips.

"A Word About High Endurance FRAM is known for high write-endurance. Until now, some applications needed more cycles than FRAM could offer. No longer! The FM20L08 offers virtually unlimited read/write cycles. You can now access each address a million times per second for hundreds of years with no wear out.

Mark Borgerson