PSoC 6 External Memory

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MiAb_4832311
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I'm looking to interface external memory with one of the PSoC 6 chips. Our application has large storage requirements (to the tune of around 2-4 gigabytes), so SPI NAND is off the table. Since our use case needs bluetooth and possibly USB, we were looking at the PSoC 63 line, but these chips don't seem to support e.MMC memory, which has raised a few questions?

Is there a (relatively) easy way to interface with raw unmanaged NAND using the PSOC 6 line, or to use e.MMC with PSoC 63? Alternatively, is anyone familiar with any chips that could serve as an intermediary SPI Controller to go between a raw NAND chip and the PSoC MCU, or any other way to work around this? 

The PSoC 62 chips seem to have support for SDHC communication, but to use bluetooth and USB I believe we would need one of the CY8C624A/8 chips with two SDHC interfaces. 

Would appreciate any insight on this, as we'll otherwise need to move away from the PSoC chips and start looking at alternatives.

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DheerajK_81
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Hello @MiAb_4832311 ,

Yes, you are right. PSoC63 line doesn't have the SDHC controller which makes it easier to interface eMMC cards.  You need to choose the PSoC62xA family which has SDHC support. 

If you want to interface memory chips, both PSoC62 and PSoC63 lines have the SMIF interface that supports single, dual, quad, dual-quad, and octal interfaces with throughput up to 640 Mbps. You can read more about it here.  

Here's a SPI flash memory chip a lot of our customers use. You could check this out for your design: https://www.cypress.com/documentation/datasheets/s25fl512s-512-mbit-64-mbyte-30v-spi-flash-memory

PSoC62 lines support USB FS. CY8C62xA devices have 2 SDHCs, it facilitates communication with IoT connectivity devices such as Bluetooth (BT), Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) and WiFi radios, as well as combination devices.

From your requirement, it looks like CY8C62xA product line seems apt. 

Hope this helps 🙂

Regards,
Dheeraj

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DheerajK_81
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Hello @MiAb_4832311 ,

Yes, you are right. PSoC63 line doesn't have the SDHC controller which makes it easier to interface eMMC cards.  You need to choose the PSoC62xA family which has SDHC support. 

If you want to interface memory chips, both PSoC62 and PSoC63 lines have the SMIF interface that supports single, dual, quad, dual-quad, and octal interfaces with throughput up to 640 Mbps. You can read more about it here.  

Here's a SPI flash memory chip a lot of our customers use. You could check this out for your design: https://www.cypress.com/documentation/datasheets/s25fl512s-512-mbit-64-mbyte-30v-spi-flash-memory

PSoC62 lines support USB FS. CY8C62xA devices have 2 SDHCs, it facilitates communication with IoT connectivity devices such as Bluetooth (BT), Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) and WiFi radios, as well as combination devices.

From your requirement, it looks like CY8C62xA product line seems apt. 

Hope this helps 🙂

Regards,
Dheeraj

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MiAb_4832311
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@DheerajK_81 Thanks for your reply -- unfortunately the SPI flash option you referenced is insufficient for our application: as I mentioned, our requirements are in the 2-4 gigabyte range, and size constraints are significant (hence eMMC). We were looking at the CY8C62xA devices, which do seem to fit our use case, but seem to be non-stock at all the distributors I checked (and Sales wasn't particularly helpful when I reached out to them). How would we be able to get our hands on some of these? Are samples available?

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Hello @MiAb_4832311 ,

You can find the sales link here: https://www.cypress.com/contact-us. They should be able to help you with samples. 

You should receive a response from them within 48 hours. If you do not receive a response from them, please do let me know, I will try to get someone to contact you. 

Regards,
Dheeraj

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ChRe_4711096
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If you don't need extremely high speed, consider a microSD card in SPI mode. It might even be small enough if you place it in a connector that raises it above other components on the PCB, like this one: https://www.mouser.de/datasheet/2/276/0473092651_MEMORY_CARD_SOCKET-229196.pdf

 

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We've looked into this before, but we've had issues with microSD cards in the past -- our use case involves high mechanical inputs, and one of the failure modes of our previous iterations has been the microSD card either getting corrupted, or getting disconnected during use. 

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