Microchip launches its highest-density EEPROM, the 25CSM04

Microchip Technology has announced its new, highest-density EEPROM - the 25CSM04.  

At 4 Mbit, Microchip’s new EEPROM becomes the largest EEPROM available to developers, doubling the 2 Mbit density designers previously were limited to. Until now developers have used lower-cost NOR Flash integrated circuits (ICs) for any 2 Mbit+ nonvolatile data set application. Because EEPROM offers performance advantages over NOR Flash, Microchip has responded to customer requests by introducing a larger 4 Mbit EEPROM. EEPROM advantages include a lower standby current (2 µA vs. 15 µA); the ability to perform single-byte, multi-byte, and full-page writes; shorter sector erase/rewrite times (5ms vs.300ms); and more erase/rewrite cycles (1M vs 100K).  

Randy Drwinga, Vice President of Microchip’s memory products division, comments, “Pushing the top end of what is possible with serial EEPROM supports product innovation. Designers can now reevaluate their systems and leverage this new technology to optimize design performance.”  

The 25CSM04 becomes part of Microchip’s extensive nonvolatile memory product portfolio that integrates within Microchip’s total system solutions built around its 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit microcontrollers and microprocessors. Microchip’s extensive memory product family includes serial EEPROMs, NOR Flash, SRAM, and EERAM in all standard serial buses and all standard densities from 128-bit to 64 Mbit.   

As a technology innovator in serial EEPROM for more than 30 years, Microchip delivers approximately one billion EEPROM devices annually.  

Development Tools 

Microchip’s 4 Mbit serial EEPROM devices are supported by the MPLAB^Ò Starter Kit for Serial Memory Products. The kit includes a serial memory interface board, serial EEPROM starter pack, USB cable, CD containing the MPLAB X Integrated Development Environment (IDE), Total Endurance software model and a serial EEPROM interface tool.  

Pricing and Availability 

The 25CSM04 family of memory devices is available in three package options starting at $2.32 in 10,000-unit quantities.