Portable consumer and medical devices including fitness trackers, hearing aids and glucose monitors as well as industrial, automotive and other systems often use customer-specific data sets to optimize the consumer experience. These nonvolatile data sets – including calibration constants, background conditions, user preferences and changing noise environments – often are adjusted by the end system or user a few bytes at a time. Serial Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EEPROM) is the memory of choice for these applications providing nonvolatility, byte-level control, ease-of-use and low-power consumption. Microchip Technology Inc.  today 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).

“Pushing the top end of what is possible with serial EEPROM supports product innovation,” said Randy Drwinga, vice president of Microchip’s memory products division. “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.

The 25CSM04 family of memory devices is available in three package options starting at $2.32 in 10,000-unit quantities. For additional information, please visit Microchip’s website.