What can SuperFlash do for you!

One could ask this question if he didn't know much about SuperFlash. As the visitor to this site will soon learn, SST is offering its users an ability to transform their products into multi-functional, multi-purpose systems on chip by enabling them to embed highly reliable, and cost effective flash. For many years, chip development and design were limited by the complexity of changing the code/ firmware and replacing the data on chip in ROM. SuperFlash offers the market a superioir, affordable and off-the-shelf solution that is easy to design. Due to this convenience and the broad availability of SuperFlash technology provided by SST's licensing program, more and more system-on-chip designers have adopted SuperFlash for their embedded flash solutions. As a result, the number of companies in the SuperFlash eco-system, including wafer foundries offering SuperFlash manufacturing and design houses designing SuperFlash-based chips, has grown to over 200.

A very important factor enabling an explosive growth in SuperFlash usage has been its universal nature and full logic compatibility. Whether you have a design in 0.13um LP process or special analog IC design to the mixed signal 0.35um technology, you can still easily embed SuperFlash into your chip. You will not need to modify your base design or change your models. Your foundry or manufacturing partner will not need to change its baseline logic or mixed signal process.

Simplicity of design is another critical factor. If you want to design using SuperFlash, you don't need to worry about complex write algorithms and verification schemes. In fact, the SuperFlash solution typically requires single pulse for erase or program, and enables very fast read. The reason is in the cell physics and its unique device properties. A direct result of this simplicity is the small flash block size, intrinsic reliability and low testing costs.

What are the most widely used applications where adding embedded Flash is beneficial?

First of all, it's the application requiring some sort of CPU or MCU on board. Once you need it, you would need a flash to execute your software in-situ. The flash can also be used for storing the external data coming from various sensors.

The other big field where embedded flash is widely used is the smartcard and SIM-card controllers. Here, the designers and product developers take advantage of SuperFlash high endurance capabilities and its ability to fully replace EEPROM based solutions. Yet another group of products are multiple trimming and code-storage applications, where the code must be updated from time to time. For the mobile applications SuperFlash is especially indispensable, due to its very low power consumption (the lowest in the industry).

More recently, we have been observing dramatic growth of the SuperFlash-based designs in the RF/ wireless applications. The technology nodes where SuperFlash is now available, has moved into the advanced range of 90nm making it attractive for the high speed applications. Here, again, our technology has no rivals among embedded memory solutions in terms of the access speed.

Finally, if you design for the high reliability markets such as automotive or medical, the SuperFlash solution is the best choice. This is the only commercially licensable embedded flash solution capable of supporting Grade 0 automotive spec as defined by AEC.

We conclude here by saying that with SuperFlash solution you can greatly expand your product offerings, enter new markets and optimize your costs. Why look for anything else?

 

 
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