Satellite and spacecraft sub-systems are increasingly using more and more on-board storage, and the choice of memory has a major impact on overall capacity, physical size, power-consumption, speed, reliability and mission lifetime. One technology is fabricated with known erroneous bits, with limits on the total number of permitted write operations, which could constrain or jeopardise your mission’s on-board storage needs! SDRAM, MRAM, NAND flash, NOR Flash, SONOS, SRAM, PROM, DRAM, EEPROM, volatile, non-volatile and SPI memory, which one is right for you?
MRAM offers the space industry the speed of SRAM, a density approaching DRAM, the non-volatility of flash memory, unlimited read/write endurance and low power consumption. These on-board storage benefits will enable new use cases for satellite applications.
Your customer wants tested hardware next month and you have budget for a single PCB spin: before sending your ODB++ or Gerber artwork, there are important Design-for-Manufacturing (DFM) checks to ensure your layout complies with formal standards, the fabricator can make it and your new bare-board is returned right-first-time. There are also Design-for-Assembly (DFA) checks to verify your sub-contractor can reliably place parts onto the PCB - I will not sign-off a new build until DFM and DFA have passed!
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Oct 06, 2025 10:00:27Kenneth Wilson
Jul 14, 2022 03:58:06