The movement to free people from environments constrained by wired applications has driven suppliers of communication devices to design portable products with ever increasing levels of flexibility and functionality. To satisfy this demand for portability every component within an electronic system is being evaluated for energy efficiency.
Spansion's low voltage Flash memories are specifically designed to excel in the art of low energy consumption.
A primary objective for designers of cellular phones, handheld Global Positioning System terminals, pagers, PDAs or virtually any portable battery powered appliance is to continuously increase battery life. Devices like cellular phones and pagers spend the majority of their time in a standby mode; meaning the device is powered on but in an inactive state. Low energy consumption translates to longer standby times. Today,
Spansion delivers Flash memories that consume the least amount of energy in the industry.
Spansion's innovative design and processing capabilities also provide high performance, low voltage Flash solutions that minimize the energy consumed during the active modes of read, program and erase.
Flash Memories Suited to Specific Power Supply Ranges
Spansion offers several families of low voltage Flash devices optimized for operation within targeted power supply ranges. This optimized approach reduces energy consumption associated with any voltage range. Furthermore, it guarantees compatibility with the power supplies driving today's low voltage microprocessors, microcontrollers, ASICs and other support chips.
Standby and Automatic Sleep Modes - Zero Power with Zero Effort
Common to all Spansion low voltage Flash devices are sophisticated power management circuits that reduce the power consumed in the inactive modes to nearly zero.
Spansion's Flash "standby mode" circuitry has been so finely architected that when the device is deselected the power consumption is typically in the low nA range, which for all practical intents and purposes, is zero power. This compares favorably to competitive devices that offer typical standby mode power consumption values in the µA or mA range.
Additionally, all
Spansion low voltage devices incorporate
a feature called Automatic Sleep Mode. In this mode the devices automatically
go into a standby mode after a minimal period of address bus inactivity regardless
of control pin status. The typical power consumed in the Automatic Sleep Mode
is equivalent to that consumed in standby mode. This feature ensures maximum
Flash memory power efficiency and simplifies the system code development and
debug task with zero effort from a designer.
New Battery Powered Products Will Feature In-System Programming of the Flash Memory
Today the majority of active Flash memory usage in battery powered products is confined to the read mode; the write and erase functions are normally limited to system test and configuration within the factory environment. However, as new features like message storage, voice recording and playback, internet access, etc. are added to portable appliances, the requirement to program and erase data in the flash device during normal use is increases. This shift in the implementation of Flash in portable systems demands that the power consumption associated with the program and erase operations be as low as possible.
Spansion's power consumption in the active modes is the lowest.
Low Energy Consumption: The True Metric for Extending Battery Life
Reduced power consumption sets the base for reducing energy consumption (battery drain). The following energy consumption charts (Energy = Power x Time) illustrate typical energy savings possible when using
Spansion's low voltage Flash devices versus the closest competitor's devices. The data is presented on a "typical time per operation" basis for the program and erase operations and "per unit of time" for the read and standby modes.
Summary
Portable battery powered devices are becoming an increasingly important tool to an ever-expanding user base worldwide. They are fueling productivity increases in the developed, communication-dependent areas of the world, while simultaneously providing newfound communication capabilities to people living in areas where no communication infrastructure ever existed.
Flash memory is a key component in the portable product revolution.
Spansion's Flash memories are the most energy efficient devices available from any supplier. They are available in a broad range of power supply options that will satisfy the non-volatile memory requirement for virtually any system regardless of the battery voltage.
Spansion low voltage Flash memories will help ensure you to design battery-powered products that exceed your customer's expectations.
