Maintaining Data Integrity in EEPROM

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Maintaining Data Integrity in EEPROMs

• Ed Patnaude
• Maxwell Technologies
• San Diego, Ca

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Maintaining Data Integrity in EEPROMs
What are some of the sources of data corruption ?

• Data corruption in EEPROMs occurs most often
  during power on and power off sequencing due to
  improper hardware and/or software implementation.
• Loss of power before a write cycle is completed
  can result in corrupted data.
• Software errors can lead to improper timing, buss
  contention, prematurely halting a write cycle, or
  initiating inadvertent writes to the EEPROM.
• Exceeding the write endurance of the device can
  damage the memory cells leaving them
  un-programmable.

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Maintaining Data Integrity in EEPROMs
What is the likelihood of having data corruption
occur?

• The question should be
• How do I maintain data integrity?
• Implement power supervisory circuitry to control
  the hardware during power up and power down
  sequencing.
• Enable Software Data Protection to prevent
  inadvertent writes.
• Always verify the data after a write has
  occurred.
• Use EDAC to identify and correct corrupted data.
• Use redundant memory to increase system
  reliability.