1 Introduction

Many embedded systems contain a serial flash component to store firmware, configuration files and user data for usage by a microcontroller/processor. The processor sporadically writes data into this serial flash to update its contents. Inclusion of serial flash memory poses unique challenges for system designers.

• A typical serial flash ensures a data endurance of 100K write cycles per sector and 20 years data retention. The write endurance and data retention characteristics must to be taken into account by the application developer.
• The serial nature of reads and writes results in long access times and this raises the challenge of maintaining a stable system supply voltage for the duration of the access.