Although Stellaris microcontrollers have generous internal SRAM capabilities, certain applicationsmay have data storage requirements that exceed the 8 KB limit of the Stellaris LM3S8xx seriesdevices. Since microcontrollers do not have an external parallel data-bus, serial memory optionsmust be considered. Until recently, the ubiquitous serial EEPROM/flash device was the only serialmemory solution. The major limitations of EEPROM and flash technology are slow write speed, slowerase times, and limited write/erase endurance.
Recently, serial SRAM devices have become available as a solution for high-speed data
applications. The N256S08xxHDA series of devices, from AMI Semiconductor, offer 32 K x 8 bits oflow-power data storage, a fast Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) serial bus, and unlimited write cycles.The parts are available in 8-pin SOIC and compact TSSOP packages.