Mike Mansheim wrote:
>
> I'd like to start using the internal data eeprom on the
> F876 in place of the external 24LC01 we've been using.
> However, Microchip's data sheet says the endurance of
> the data eeprom is 100,000 writes, vs. 1,000,000 for
> the 24xxx (I even saw a reference in the archives that
> said endurance of the 24xxx type parts is actually
> 10 million).
> Is Microchip being real conservative here, or is the
> data eeprom on these chips just not as robust?
> Thanks for any help.


I think you might be right on both counts, Microchip
are indeed conservative with their guaranteed erase/write
cycles, and yes the data eeprom in the PIC is probably
less cycles than a dedicated eeprom chip.

I have heard people talk about getting 12,000,000
erase/write cycles from PIC eeprom at room temps,
Microchip used to promote 1,000,000 cycles and
FAQs about "how to get 10,000,000 cycles". But with
higher operating temps these figures drop a lot,
so Microchip dropped their official figure to
100,000 cycles.

The best advice is to stay within Microchips recent
spec, and rotate your eeprom data through a number of
locations each time you write it. Obviously you need
enough memory to do this.
:o)
-Roman

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