SPRADL4 January 2025 F29H850TU , F29H859TU-Q1
EEPROMs are available in different capacities and connect with the host microcontrollers via a serial and sometimes parallel interface. The serial inter-integrated circuit (I2C) and serial peripheral interface (SPI) are quite popular due to the minimal number of pins/traces. EEPROMs can be programmed and erased electrically, and most of the serial EEPROMs allow byte-by-byte program or erase operations.
The biggest difference between EEPROM and Flash is in the erase operation: an EEPROM can erase any particular individual byte, while Flash must clear at least one entire sector.
Flash write and erase cycles are performed by applying time-controlled voltages to each cell. In the erase condition, each cell (bit) reads a logical 1. Therefore, every Flash location of a C2000 Real-Time Controller reads 0xFFFF when erased. By programming, the cell can be changed to logical 0. Any byte can be overwritten to change a bit from logical 1 to 0 (assuming the corresponding ECC has not been programmed); but not the other way around. The on-chip Flash memory on F29H85x MCUs parts require TI-supplied specific algorithms (Flash API) for erase and write operations.