What are the key advantages over EEPROM and Flash?
1) Speed. The “RAM” part of the F-RAM name tells us that it is a RAM, not a ROM. Of course, EEPROM and Flash are not truly ROMs but writing to them can be very slow. An F-RAM’s write cycles are completed immediately whereas an EEPROM/flash needs 5 to 10 ms. 2) Low Power Writes. Writes to the F-RAM cell occur at low voltage and very little current is needed to change the data. With EEPROM and Flash, high voltages (10V charge pump) are needed and writes require 5 ms to complete a page buffer write. The energy needed is much higher than F-RAM writes. If E=P*t, then 5ms of write time will necessarily require 200x more energy than F-RAM. 3) High Endurance. Writes are destructive – and floating gate devices eventually wear out; typical endurance is 100,000 to 1 million cycles. F-RAM experiences 1E12 read/write cycles or greater.
