EPROM - Data Sheets - Atmel Corporation

The Atmel 3-Volt EPROM Family

• Why 3-volt operation?

• Does the whole system have to be

operated at 3 volts?

• How do you program a 3-volt

EPROM?

• What happens if you run a 3-volt

device at 3.6 volts?

The Atmel AT27LVxxxA series of

EPROMs was designed to operate over

a wide rang e of supp ly vo lta ges fr om 3. 0

to 3.6 volts. This offers the designer the

opportunity to take advantage of the

great ly reduc ed power c onsum ption a t 3

volts .

The 3-volt series of EPROMs is specified

to draw a maximum of 8.0 mA at 5.0

MHz when operated at 3.6VDC. This is

less than half of the spec ified maximum

current of a standard EPROM operating

at 5.0VDC. Because of the low supply

voltage, the power savings calculations

are even more dramatic: 29 mW for the

LV series compared to 165 mW (5.5V @

30 mA; i.e. 27C040) for standard five-

volt devices. That means much longer

battery life.

The LV series has CMOS inputs and

outputs specified for TTL levels and 3-

volt CMOS levels (R ail-to-Rail). In other

words, an LV device with VCC = 3.0VDC

can drive standard 5-volt TTL logic

devices on its data output lines making

interface with 5-volt logic easy. The LV

series of EPROMs can even be safely

driven by 5-volt signals, even though

their VCC is at 3.0VDC (please refer to

application note

Interfacing Atmel LV

EPROMs on a Mixed Three-Volt/Five-

Volt Data Bus

, this chapter). The next

quest ion tha t come s to mi nd is “Wh y run

just one EPROM at 3 v ol ts whi le the rest

of the system uses 5 volts?” One reason

is if your sy stem is on a ve ry tight power

budget, such as battery operated equip-

ment, daughter boards or phone line

powered pro ducts, the six times power

savings might make a significant differ-

ence. Of course your design might us e

more than one E PROM, for map mem-

ory, operating system, font storage or

maybe smart cards. In this case the total

power savings can be very large.

Remember at 165 mW each, 8 EPROMs

at 5 volts us e 1.3 Watts instead of 235

mW for the 3-volt devices!

When the 3-volt devices are in a pro-

grammer they work just like their stan-

dard Atmel 5-volt counterparts.

Absolutely no difference! Programming

support is already in place and widely

availabl e on most progr ammers on the

market toda y.

The AT27LVxxxA series of EPROM s are

specified to operate from 3.0 to 3.6 volts.

So what happens when the device is

operated above 3 volts? It speeds up

and draws more power , but never m ore

than a standard EPROM. This feature

offers the most flexibility for system man-

ufacturers.

Low Voltage

OTP EPROM

CMOS EPROM

Rev. 0546A–10/98

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