The Common Flash Memory Interface (CFI) is an open standard jointly developed by
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...
,
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...
,
Sharp and
Fujitsu. It is implementable by all
flash memory
Flash memory is an Integrated circuit, electronic Non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for t ...
vendors, and has been approved by the non-volatile-memory subcommittee of
JEDEC
The Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC) Solid State Technology Association is a consortium of the semiconductor industry headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia, Arlington, United States. It has over 300 members and is focused ...
. The goal of the specification is the interchangeability of flash memory devices offered by different vendors. The developer is able to use one driver for different flash products by reading identifying information from the flash chip.
Each flash memory device contains the following information: memory size, byte and word configuration, block configuration, and voltage and timing data.
The specification provides several benefits. No or very little information about flash devices has to be stored in tables within system software. It is possible to use lower cost flash memory devices as they become available without rewriting system software. Adapting current software systems shall be done more easily and quickly than previously.
Support for CFI is implemented in
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...
.
See also
*
Open NAND Flash Interface Specification (ONFi)
References
{{Reflist
External links
JEDEC - free documents require registration
JEDEC - Common Flash Interface (CFI) Specification, JESD68.01, September 2003. JEDEC - CFI ID Codes, JEP137B, May 2004JEDEC - Standard Manufacturers ID Code, JEP106AC, August 2010Infineon/Cypress (formerly Spansion)
Common Flash Interface Publication 100 (CFI Vendor & Device ID Code Assignments), 2001.Original link
Spansion - App Note - CFI Spec, 2008.
Original link
Spansion - App Note - Using CFI to Read and Debug Systems, 2007.
Original link
Infineon/Cypress (formerly Spansion) - Quick Guide to Common Flash Interface, 2008, updated 2017.
AMD
Non-volatile memory
AMD technologies