High Speed ​​Serial Flash Universal Driver Design

This thesis studies the principles of a High Performance Serial Flash (HPSF) Memory and develops device driver software which is suitable for real-time embedded system. HPSF memory is non-volatile based on NOR-Flash technology, which has multiple input/output ports. HPSF memory based on40nm to60nm advanced process technology, which has minimum8pins and can be packed into minimum8x6mm size, can reach a clock frequency up to hundreds of mega-hertz and can have4-bit I/O data width. These features enable HPSF memory to have advantages of both high-performance and low-cost.Traditional Serial Flash follows the standard SPI Protocol, adopts1-bit data width. Traditional parallel NOR-Flash has higher width, but the cost is quite high.In addition, the performance improvement would also be subject to physical limitations.HPSF adopts extended SPI protocol, and its data width is four times of the traditional serial Flash. It can also reach higher clock frequency. Furthermore, HPSF can provide similar system performance as the parallel NOR-Flash in a real-time embedded system equipped with Cache. HPSF does not only keep the low cost value of traditional Serial Flash, but also as the similar performance as the parallel NOR-Flash. This makes HPSF has high competitiveness to replace traditional Serial Flash and the parallel NORFlash.HPSF works similarly as the parallel NORFlash, but it has entirely different instructions and control method. Parallel NOR-Flash and traditional Serial Flash device driver software are not compatible with High Performance Serial Flash, so HPSF driver needs to be re-designed in accordance with its unique hardware features.This thesis analyzes the principles and working method of the HPSF memory and describes the details of how to develop a device driver software in real-time embedded system.This device driver software can be compatible for most of the popular series of HPSF. Meanwhile, it can reserve the unique advantages which are owned by different type of HPSF. The excellent compatibilities of this software reduce cost to update the software. Therefore, this thesis provides great value for the application engineering.