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| Winbond's SpiFlash 25X Family of Serial Flash Memories Winbond Electronics Corporation America has announced the SpiFlash 25X family of serial Flash memories featuring 4K-byte sectors, densities from 1M-bit to 64M-bit, and space-efficient 8-pin SOIC packaging. The performance and flexibility of the 25X memories make them suited for a wide range of electronic applications including DVD/CD drives, DVD recorders, desktop and notebook PCs, LCD monitors, flat-panel televisions, WLAN devices, DSL modems, printers, disk drives, and FPGA-based designs. The first members of the 25X SpiFlash line include the W25X40 (4M-bit) and W25X80 (8M-bit). Winbond's new 25X SpiFlash memories can access data at clock rates of up to 75MHz. This performance can be further improved to an equivalent of 150MHz clock rate by using the 25X "Dual-Output SPI" feature, which provides two bits of data per clock while maintaining the same 4-pin SPI interface. To accommodate this, the 25X Dual-Output-Read instruction allows the SPI data "input" pin to become an "I/O" pin. Application-specific controllers, DSPs, microcontrollers, and FPGAs supporting the 25X's Dual-Output feature can achieve read performance at rates comparable to parallel Flash with a 16-bit data bus. Faster transfer rates mean controllers using parallel Flash can quickly shadow or cache code to RAM and even execute code directly from the SPI interface. The 25X SpiFlash family also features uniform 4K-byte erasable sectors and 64K-byte erasable blocks through the entire array. The small 4K-byte sectors allow for flexible and efficient memory allocation, as well as storage of parameter and configuration data typically handled by EEPROMs. The 25X devices support both top and bottom write protection, and the instruction set is superset-compatible with industry-standard "25P" serial Flash memories. SpiFlash 25X devices from 1Mb through 32Mb are offered in space-saving 8-pin SOIC packages, allowing for a common footprint across a wide density range. write your comments about the article :: © 2006 Computing News :: home page |