Obsolescence of Low power static rams

Hey group,

Samsung has just announced end of 2006 as obsolescence date for I think all of its low power static ram devices.

I still need small-sized rams like 128 K x 8 or 256K x 8 for simple battery backed-up applications involving "small" 8 bits/16 bits microcontrolers/microprocessors, and all appear to exhibit the same problem.

Any idea about remaining manufacturers for low power, average access time static rams, in wide SOIC packages, preferably with ROHS spec ?

Thanks beforehand for your answer.

A. Beaujean

Reply to
abeaujean
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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.

Reply to
cbarn24050

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?

--
Stef    (remove caps, dashes and .invalid from e-mail address to reply by mail)
Reply to
Stef

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

8K / 32K SRAM tho, but you can eliminate the battery (unless you also have a RTC to power... )

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

3.3V and 5V systems.

-jg

Reply to
Jim Granville

Have you considered the FRAM parts from Ramtron

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Parts up to 128K x 8 and speeds to 60ns. No backup battery needed for nonvolatility.

Mark Borgerson

Reply to
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

Reply to
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.

1M bit Ferroelectric Nonvolatile RAM ? Organized as 131,072 x 8 bits ? 10 year Data Retention ? Unlimited Read/Write Cycles ? NoDelay? Writes"

Mark Borgerson

Reply to
Mark Borgerson

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