Industry’s first Quad SPI FRAM device offers ultra-high speed

Fujitsu has launched the industry’s first Quad SPI FRAM product MB85RQ4ML, offering an ultra high-speed and compact nonvolatile memory solution for networking, industry computing and HMI applications. The MB85RQ4ML incorporates 4Mbit FRAM (Ferroelectric Random Access Memory) and Quad SPI interface. By using four bi-directional I/O pins, the Quad SPI FRAM device can reach a data transfer rate of 54MByte per second at an operating frequency of 108MHz. In this respect, MB85RQ4ML is over four times as fast as our existing parallel 4Mbit FRAM device and even outperforms the 45ns parallel SRAM. The device is offered in a SOP-16 package. In comparison to our parallel devices of the same density, which are housed in TSOP-44 or TSOP-48 packages, MB85RQ4ML achieves a package size reduction of at least 50% as well as a pin count reduction of 60%. The low pin count of MB85RQ4ML contributes significantly to a simplified circuit routing on the PCB. As a result, the PCB space needed can be reduced to a large extent. In addition to its high speed, MB85RQ4ML offers the usual FRAM characteristics as well, like non-volatility and high endurance of 10 trillion read/write cycles. Since power is not required to retain the data written in the memory, MB85RQ4ML can be a perfect candidate to replace battery backed-up SRAMs. While the conventional memory architecture of embedded systems consists of a RAM and a non-volatile memory, MB85RQ4ML can, in many applications, replace both kinds of memory technologies and offer a unified memory technology in one chip. In this way, customers can realize a more simplified and stable system architecture. “With this ultra high-peed Quad SPI product, we have reached another milestone in enhancing our FRAM technology,” said FEEU senior director, sales, marketing, QA and technical support, Uwe Püsche. MB85RQ4ML operates at a voltage range of 1.7V - 1.95V. In addition to Quad SPI, single SPI interface is supported as well. Among Fujitsu’s serial FRAM portfolio, this 4Mbit device represents the highest density on offer, says the company.