Microchip intros unique ID family of EEPROMs

USA: Microchip Technology Inc. has introduced a family of serial EEPROM devices that feature a unique, pre-programmed 32-bit serial number for customers requiring unique IDs in their applications.

For applications needing longer than 32-bit IDs, the unique ID can be extended to 48-bit, 64-bit, 96-bit, 128-bit and other lengths by increasing the number of bytes read from memory. Because the 32-bit ID is unique within these devices, any longer bit sequence is also unique. These 2 Kb serial EEPROM devices are available in standard busses, such as I2C, SPI and Microwire, and come with up to 1.5 Kb of memory that can be used as a standard EEPROM.

Additionally, Microchip released a 256 Kb I2C unique-ID device, which, in addition to the 32-bit serial number, also contains the IEEE EUI-48 and IEEE EUI-64 MAC addresses. These IDs are in a write-protected area of the memory, giving users up to 224 Kb of EEPROM to use in their applications. Microchip ensures this 32-bit ID is unique across the entire family of 24AA02UID, 24AA025UID, 11AA02UID, 25AA02UID and 24AA256UID unique-ID EEPROM devices.

Microchip also added to its existing EUI-48 MAC Address portfolio by introducing a family with pre-programmed EUI-64 MAC Addresses. These 2 Kb EEPROM devices are available in the I2C, SPI and UNI/O bus, which provide easy and inexpensive access to MAC addresses, and feature up to 1.5 Kb of EEPROM that can be used for storing configuration settings, or as a scratch-pad area for buffering small amounts of data.

The 24AA02E64, 24AA025E64, 11AA02E64 and 25AA02E64 serial EEPROM devices have a built-in 64-bit Extended Unique Identifier (EUI) that is needed to identify the network hardware’s physical address. These built-in MAC addresses enable designers to buy addresses only when needed, and also eliminate the need for serialization and programming.