Flash 8 Click

How does it work?

Flash 8 Click as its foundation uses the GD5F2GQ5UEYIGR, a highly reliable serial Flash memory solution offering flexibility designed for use in a wide variety of consumer applications from GigaDevice Semiconductor. It comes with a density of 2Gb based on an industry-standard NAND Flash memory core, representing an attractive alternative to SPI-NOR and standard parallel NAND Flash with advanced features. Organized as 256Mx8, the GD5F2GQ5UEYIGR has advanced security features (8K-Byte OTP region) and specifies a minimum of 100.000 endurance cycles with data retention of a minimum of 10 years, giving it the capability to handle unlimited reads/writes to the memory.

This Click board™ communicates with MCU through an industry-standard SPI interface (Dual and QSPI compatible) that enables high clock speed, supporting the two most common SPI modes, SPI Mode 0 and 3, with a maximum frequency of 104MHz. It is programmed/read in page-based operations and erased in block-based operations. Data is transferred to/from the NAND Flash memory array, page by page, to a data register and a cache register which is closest to I/O control circuits, acting as a data buffer for the I/O data (enable page and random data READ/WRITE and copy back operations). In addition to the SPI communication, this Click board™ also has two additional pins used for Write Protection and HOLD function routed to the RST and PWM pins of the mikroBUS™ socket.

The configurable Write Protection, marked as WP and routed on the RST pin of the mikroBUS™ socket, prevents the block lock bits from being overwritten and must be held low to inhibit all the write operations to registers. When this pin is low, also by setting the appropriate bits, all memory and register write are prohibited, and the address counter is not incremented. On the other hand, the HOLD pin labeled as HLD and routed to the PWM pin of the mikroBUS™ socket stops any serial communications with the device. Still, it doesn’t stop the operation of reading programming or erasing in progress.

This Click board™ can be operated only with a 3.3V logic voltage level. The board must perform appropriate logic voltage level conversion before using MCUs with different logic levels. What should be paid special attention to is the fact that if power shortage or power failure happens before Write/Erase operation is complete, it will cause loss or damage to data. However, the Click board™ comes equipped with a library containing functions and an example code that can be used, as a reference, for further development.

Specifications

Pinout diagram

This table shows how the pinout on Flash 8 Click corresponds to the pinout on the mikroBUS™ socket (the latter shown in the two middle columns).

Notes	Pin					Pin	Notes
	NC	1	AN	PWM	16	HLD	QSPI IO3 / SPI Suspension
QSPI IO2 / Write Protection	WP	2	RST	INT	15	NC
SPI Chip Select	CS	3	CS	RX	14	NC
SPI Clock	SCK	4	SCK	TX	13	NC
SPI Data OUT	SDO	5	MISO	SCL	12	NC
SPI Data IN	SDI	6	MOSI	SDA	11	NC
Power Supply	3.3V	7	3.3V	5V	10	NC
Ground	GND	8	GND	GND	9	GND	Ground

Onboard settings and indicators

Flash 8 Click electrical specifications

Software Support

We provide a library for the Flash 8 Click as well as a demo application (example), developed using MikroElektronika compilers. The demo can run on all the main MikroElektronika development boards.

Package can be downloaded/installed directly from NECTO Studio Package Manager(recommended way), downloaded from our LibStock™ or found on Mikroe github account.

Library Description

This library contains API for Flash 8 Click driver.

Key functions

• flash8_write_memory Flash 8 write memory function.

• flash8_read_memory Flash 8 read memory function.

• flash8_read_id Flash 8 read ID function.

Example Description

This library contains API for Flash 8 Click driver. The library using SPI serial interface. The library also includes a function for write and read memory as well as write protection control functions.

 void application_task ( void ) {    
     flash8_read_memory( &flash8, 123, 456, &rx_data[ 0 ], 9, &feature_status_out ); 
     log_printf( &logger, "    Read data : %s", rx_data ); 
     log_printf( &logger, "--------------------------rn" ); 
     Delay_ms( 2000 ); 
 }

The full application code, and ready to use projects can be installed directly from NECTO Studio Package Manager(recommended way), downloaded from our LibStock™ or found on Mikroe github account.

Other Mikroe Libraries used in the example:

• MikroSDK.Board
• MikroSDK.Log
• Click.Flash8

Additional notes and informations

Depending on the development board you are using, you may need USB UART click, USB UART 2 Click or RS232 Click to connect to your PC, for development systems with no UART to USB interface available on the board. UART terminal is available in all MikroElektronika compilers.

mikroSDK

This Click board™ is supported with mikroSDK – MikroElektronika Software Development Kit. To ensure proper operation of mikroSDK compliant Click board™ demo applications, mikroSDK should be downloaded from the LibStock and installed for the compiler you are using.

For more information about mikroSDK, visit the official page.