COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – February 14, 2011 – Ramtron International Corporation (Nasdaq: RMTR), a leading developer and supplier of ferroelectric-based low-power memory and integrated semiconductor products, today announced its W-Family of F-RAM memory. Devices in the W-Family, available in serial I2C, SPI and parallel interfaces, offer wider operating voltage range from 2.7V to 5.5V. Additionally, the W-Family offers performance enhancements including a 25% to 50% reduction in active current requirements and serial devices with up to 20 times faster First Access Start (power up initialization). The FM24W256 and FM25W256 W-Family memories are available in 256-Kbit serial I2C and SPI interfaces, respectfully. A parallel communication interface is available in the 64-Kbit FM16W08 and 256-Kbit FM18W08 devices.
“The W-Family’s wide operating voltage offers system designers lower active current and improved system performance,” remarks Mike Peters, Ramtron’s standard memory marketing manager. “An early power loss can be detected by the system and the controller can write data down to 2.7 volts, safeguarding valuable data from corruption or loss. Due to the flexibility of the wider operating voltage, the W-Family can minimize the number of components that customers need to inventory.”
About the W-Family Products
The W-Family offers a design alternative to customers that have previously used 64K to 256K F-RAM devices. W-Family products are built on an advanced, high-reliability ferroelectric process and offer NoDelay™ writes along with 100-trillion (1e14) high endurance reads/write cycles and 38-year data retention. The new devices are available in industry standard “green” packaging that includes an 8-pin SOIC for serial devices and a 28-pin SOIC for parallel devices. The W-Family is ideal for nonvolatile memory applications that require frequent or rapid writes or low power operation. Examples range from high frequency data collection to demanding industrial control applications, where the long write time of EEPROM can result in data loss. W-Family serial SPI devices offer full bus speed writes enabled by Ramtron’s F-RAM technology and are guaranteed to operate over the industrial temperature range of -40°C to +85°C.
Pricing and Availability
Samples of the W-Family devices are now available. Pricing in 10K quantity for the 256-Kbit FM24W256 and FM25W256 is $2.35. Pricing for the parallel devices in 10K quantity is $1.96 for the 64-Kbit FM16W08 and $3.48 for the 256-Kbit FM18W08.
About Ramtron
Ramtron International Corporation, headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is a fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops and markets specialized semiconductor memory and integrated semiconductor solutions used in a wide range of product applications and markets worldwide. For more information, visit www.ramtron.com. For a 300-dpi product photo, visit www.ramtron.com/doc/Press/Images.asp, (see F-RAM W-Family).
