FRAM technology could help make implantable medical electronics commonplace.

Imagine a world in which implantable medical electronics are commonplace – helping people deal with diabetes, high blood pressure and many other physical conditions – and they’re so reliable that you don’t give them a second thought. They’re just humming away, doing their job.

TI’s FRAM technology is one key to making that possible.

Short for ferroelectric random-access memory, FRAM (pronounced EF-ram) is the latest in nonvolatile memory technology, enabling high speed, low power and a compact package – just what you want in embedded medical electronics.

• Just how energy-efficient is FRAM? Flash memory technology commonly used in thumb drives consumes 250 times the power used by FRAM. By conserving power, FRAM produces longer battery life as well as high confidence that an implant will function smoothly for many years.
• FRAM has virtually unlimited endurance. It can handle an astounding 100 trillion read/write cycles, making it practically impossible to wear out.
• In many medical applications such as infusion pumps that gradually administer insulin to diabetes patients, it’s essential to keep an accurate record of the amount of drug already administered, even in the event of battery failure. FRAM’s nonvolatile memory does just that.
• FRAM eliminates the need for certain algorithms and capacitors required by other memory technology, and it writes data to memory so fast that programmers can eliminate code for functions such as write scheduling. That not only streamlines software and speeds development but also makes the lives of design engineers much easier.

Plus FRAM demands no special treatment. Engineers treat it just as if it were any other memory technology, putting them in a familiar environment when developing medical applications with FRAM. And yet the performance benefits are staggering, and that ultimately benefits patients.