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CC3200 Why No Internal Flash?

occam49
Prodigy 30 points
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: CC3200, CC3100

It seems odd these days that an MCU has no internal flash and  that program code needs to be loaded from external SPI flash.

Why such an "backward" design?

  • 0
    TI__Expert 4345 points

    CC3200 is an extremely versatile device and includes Embedded ROM containing Key Peripheral Drivers, Internet & Wi-Fi Protocols. The external flaash is primarily required for User application data. CC3200 offers customers the flexibility to choose the size of external flash to fit their applicaiton requirements.

  • 0 in reply to Adnan
    Prodigy 30 points

    External flash increases cost and  footprint size. Most MCU these days have variants with differrent flash size. THis is preferred vs external flash. I don't see any benefit to exterrnal flash

  • 0 in reply to occam49
    Guru 21435 points

    I can see your point and it is easy to make arguments from both sides.

    My opinion is that external serial flash is great, as this can be used to store many other things that are required, that just would not work with an internal flash. For example, I have images for the internal web server, CCS file and also I can store many different settings/scenes on the serial flash. To allow for that much space on internal flash would raise the cost of the the MCU significantly more than adding an external serial flash.

    Additionally, and I am not sure if this was one of the reasons for the decision, but it will have an impact on outcomes. The CC3100/CC3200 will only require a few different versions, instead of 20 different types for the different combinations of flash and RAM. This will likely to reduce manufacturing costs which will be passed onto the consumer. It also means that the chip you require will be in stock and you do not have a long lead time to get the chip you want....all of this lead to cost savings and potential profit.

    Glenn.