Trying to understand the technology choices available to engineers? This chart here shows the expansion memory landscape mapping the different technology options on the parameters of density and throughput achievable. The various colors represent different technologies, the text inside shows the interfaces they support, and the number of pins required for data transfer. For engineers looking for external RAM, they have a wide choice ranging from few kb’s to hundreds of Mb’s. Depending on the density requirements, the designer can choose between various technologies such as Static RAMs (SRAMs) for the lower density ranges, Dynamic Rams (DRAMs) for the higher densities and pseudo-static DRAMs (pSRAMs) for the mid-range. SRAMs are based on four or six transistor technology and do not need to be refreshed. DRAMs on the other hand, are based on 1T1C (1 transistor 1 capacitor) architecture and need to be periodically refreshed by the host controller to maintain their charge/data. pSRAM are based on the DRAM architecture but have inbuilt self-refresh circuitry, so they mimic SRAMs while offering performance similar to DRAMs. This is where HYPERRAM^™ fits: it is targeted at the growing niche region between SRAMs and DDR DRAMs. HYPERRAM is essentially a pSRAM with a HYPERBUS^™/Octal xSPI interface. The upcoming slides will cover more details on this topic.