When comparing the different embedded memory types, it is useful to look at and define the basic characteristics. Being non-volatile means that the memory does not lose its contents in the event of a loss of power. The comparison chart shown on this slide illustrates several non-volatile memory technologies, including Flash and EEPROM. As can be seen, FRAM is the only memory that is simultaneously dynamic, non-volatile, and unified. Flash is the most popular non-volatile memory in use, but FRAM holds the advantage in power consumption, programming flexibility and write endurance. In a test case where 13 kilobytes of data were written to each kind of memory, write speeds of FRAM were comparable to SRAM at up to 8 megabytes per second on MSP430 devices. Simply put, with write speeds one hundred times faster than a typical flash microcontroller, FRAM from TI enables more efficient applications. The MSP430 FRAM MCU is low in terms of active power consumption at 103 µA/MHZ. This means it not only gets the job done more quickly, but uses less energy while it is working. In test situations, FRAM was again comparable to SRAM in this category. The next category is write endurance, or the number of times that the memory can be written to without becoming unstable. In bench tests, FRAM embedded memory has withstood a minimum 100 trillion write cycles. As TI continues to develop FRAM technology, this number is expected to increase. By comparison, Flash is typically only qualified to 10,000 write cycles and, at most, 100,000 cycles. For many applications, this has meant logging data either at a lower resolution or frequency. With FRAM, designers can take more data more frequently, or even add sensors to a single device, resulting in large cost savings. Here the engineer has to buy a larger amount of Flash than is strictly needed and write code to manage which areas are written to when with a keen eye on the intended life of the product. With FRAM engineers are able to record and store data virtually continuously without any of these worries. Like standard RAM technology, FRAM allows the user to address and program the device down to the specific bit address. In contrast, when programming Flash, the user is limited by the sectored nature of Flash as well as the inflexible addressing of Flash, RAM, interrupts, registers, and global variables. FRAM redefines programming flexibility, and is ideal for applications like data logging where only a few bytes of memory are used for the main active loop, with the vast majority reserved for storage. Unlike the other memory types, FRAM is truly a unified memory. This means that designers can specify how the entire memory space is to be configured. In addition, the MSP430FR57xx family is equipped with a memory protection unit that allows the dynamic reconfiguration of memory segments into code (read-only) or data (read/write/erase) space. This speeds design time and makes part selection easier because software engineers are able to sample the largest part, uses as much as they want as program or run time memory, and then finalize their part in the most efficient configuration.