F-RAM Power failure during write and read/write disturb

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Anonymous
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Hi!

I have some questions regarding the reliability of F-RAM memories and what software needs to take into consideration.

What is the effect of power failure during a write operation? Will this affect the byte being updated, leaving it in an unknown and potentially volatile state? Can this affect the whole row?

Is read/write disturb an issue on F-RAM? (On a row basis?)

I searched through the knowledge base and the application notes but could not find any information on the topic. Is there any Cypress documentation describing this?

Regards

Mikael

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1 Solution

Hi Mikael,

There will be no potential side effects of power failure (like reduced data retention etc) on FRAMs

Thanks,

Pradipta.

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PradiptaB_11
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500 replies posted 250 solutions authored 250 replies posted

Hi Mikael,

If the power is lost in the middle of the write operation, only the last completed byte will be written. The incomplete byte will not be updated. The FRAM updates the memory after a byte of data has been clocked in. You can find this documented in the FRAM datasheets under write operation.

Thanks,

Pradipta.

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Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi!

Yes, I have seen that in the datasheet. But I did not find any statements regarding any potential side-effects of power failure, such as reduced data retention.

For example on NAND, if power fail while writing a page, the page might end up as complete garbage or it could look correct but suffer from horrendously bad data retention (you might read back valid data the first time, but subsequent reads are corrupted beyond recovery).

Thanks

Mikael

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Hi Mikael,

There will be no potential side effects of power failure (like reduced data retention etc) on FRAMs

Thanks,

Pradipta.