This is my weekend toy, a Spansion/Cypress fl256saif00 (S25FL256S), a 32MB SPI module. This chip is salvaged from a Cisco EPC3928 Docsis 3.0 Modem Router (2012).
The (first) challenge was to be able to remove it from the donor PCB without damage it and to solder it on a breakout board, just for practice. This seems to be successful so far, nice result. Pretty good for just a first-timer. Because of this result, I just thinking of reusing it with use of a MCU.
I have downloaded the datasheet (it is huge!) and also found a library to create a filesystem on it. However, there are some questions, because this chip is not new and there are several memory protection methods described in the datasheet. I cannot figure out whether it is temporary (active when used inside application) or permanent (forever). For example write protection on some memory areas. I will spend some time on it and want to know for sure, that is not unusable by protection (thus a waste of time), for example impossible to reformat and write data/files to it. It must be fun, no frustration ;-)
So my question/doubts (before I start this investigation/journey) are:
- Is it possible when it is protected to unlock the protection by reformat/clear the whole flash memory? Can I reuse it anyway?
- In the datasheet, there are several packages, except mine (see picture above). There is a 16-lead SOIC displayed that match the pins however not the size (width), is this actually the same?
Datasheet references:
The datasheets, there are two versions of the same, one branded Spansion and one branded Cypress. I have read that Cypress bought Spansion in 2015, that's the reason there are two brandnames involved. I think I must use the first one, since the IC is labeled with the brand "Spansion" and module is of a device of 2012.
