Industrial Applications: Burdened by Batteries, Freed by F-RAM

F-RAM is an ideal alternative to BBSRAM in industrial applications such as factory automation because of its high cost effectiveness and performance, as well as its low environmental impact.

BBSRAM is commonly used in industrial applications to:

• Save complete machine setups to control machine operation

• Process histories to ensure minimum interruption

• Collect data for higher level systems such as:
  - Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)
  - Manufacturing Execution System (MES)
  - Distributed Control System (DCS) systems
  

Within these applications, availability and reliability must be very high to minimize the cost of operation for scheduled and unplanned maintenance. They are usually associated with a high cost of downtime or the inability to make up for lost production time. In addition, it’s very common that the typical lifetime of a device in an industrial environment is about 10 to 20 years.

BBSRAM subsystems are not well suited for some manufacturing environments due to:

• Footprint space and height
  - Not possible in micro/nano PLCs.
  

• Reliability
  - High number of potential points of failure
  - Inherently vulnerable to shock and vibration
  - Negative voltage spikes can erase SRAM content
  

• Data security
  - Possible tampering of critical data
  

• Safety issues
  - Possible explosion in intrinsically unsafe environments
  

• High total cost of ownership
  - Significant scrape cost – disposal of batteries in a manner which complies with the regulations
  - Battery maintenance and downtime
  - Manufacturing complexities – Lithium cells cannot be exposed to high heat profile during manufacturing. Use of DIP packages introduces manual assembly, adding further complexity and possible compromised board integrity.
  

Ramtron’s parallel F-RAM memory offers an excellent alternative to system designers by removing BBSRAM design complexities, reliability concerns, and functional disadvantages.