Fujitsu Semiconductor America today announced two new FRAM products featuring 1 Mbit and 2 Mbits of memory. The MB85RS1MT and MB85RS2MT, the largest-capacity, serial-interface FRAM products offered by Fujitsu, will be available in sample quantities at the end of March.
The MB85RS1MT and MB85RS2MT FRAMs offer features that are ideal for smart meters, industrial machinery and medical devices, including high endurance, higher writing speed, larger density and low power consumption. The new FRAMs can support 10 trillion writing cycles, an endurance roughly 10 times greater than previous ferroelectric memories from Fujitsu and superior to other nonvolatile memories by at least a million times. Memory devices using FRAM consume 92 percent less power during writing compared to identical-capacity EEPROMs, and feature a writing speed 920 times faster.
As a single-chip solution, the new FRAM products substantially reduce component costs, mounted area, and power consumption compared to other system memory solutions that use EEPROM or SRAM and a battery for data retention. The new FRAM devices, by eliminating the need for a battery and additional memory components, simplify the design process, save board space, and reduce maintenance costs.
FRAM is a high-speed random access memory that is non-volatile, allowing data to be retained when the power is switched off. Its speed and durability enable FRAM to safely store more data than alternative solutions in the event of a sudden power failure. The dependability of FRAM for data retention has made it the choice of global customers for factory automation equipment, measurement devices, banking terminals, and medical devices since its introduction by Fujitsu in 1999.
"The larger 1 Mbit and 2 Mbit densities of the MB85RS1MT and MB85RS2MT, combined with FRAM’s higher endurance, faster writing speed and lower power, make the new devices optimal for real-time, continuous data-logging applications," said Tong Swan Pang, senior marketing manager at Fujitsu Semiconductor America. "FRAM is also ideal for sensitive medical devices such as hearing aids, where its faster writing speed eliminates undesirable noise."
The MB85RS1MT (1 Mbit) and MB85RS2MT (2 Mbit) will also be available as bare die for use in tiny medical and consumer devices.