Case Study of FeRAM adoption in Car Infotainment Systems

December 22, 2025

Memory at every stop: Reliably retaining information even when the power is off

FeRAM is known for being used in many parts of automotive such as airbags, BMS or EDR. One of its many other applications is its use in car infotainment systems. As FeRAM almost instantly stores configuration information, in 5.2 milliseconds, enabling immediate use upon engine restart, it is extremely fast, compared to EEPROM and similar technologies on top of requiring no supercapacitor, and offering reliability compliant with AEC-Q100.

The Role of FeRAM in Car Infotainment

Car infotainment is a feature that supports driving and enhances comfort by providing drivers and passengers with the information and entertainment they need. FeRAM can store user settings and GPS location data when the engine is turned off, allowing this information to be retrieved when the engine is restarted, enabling a comfortable driving experience immediately.

Block Diagram of FeRAM-embedded Car infotainment system

FeRAM Applications

When the supply voltage drops and the system detects an engine shutdown, critical data such as user settings and GPS location information is saved to FeRAM. Thanks to FeRAM’s high-speed writing characteristics, saving 256 Kbits of data takes only 5.2 milliseconds (at 50 MHz operation), ensuring that necessary data can be securely stored before the voltage completely drops. As a result, there is no need to load settings during restart, allowing operation to begin immediately upon engine start, which provides a significant advantage.

Required time to complete a 256 Kbit write

For 256Kbit of data, FeRAM requires only 5.2 milliseconds to write. Under the same conditions, NOR FLASH takes 450 milliseconds and EEPROM takes 2,500 milliseconds, demonstrating that FeRAM allows extremely fast writing. This characteristic enables FeRAM to reliably and instantly store critical data in memory, even in emergencies such as power interruptions.

FeRAM (MS85RS256TYA)	EEPROM (M95256)	NOR FLASH (AT25DF256)
5.2msec	2500msec	450msec (excluding data erase time)

Advantages of Using FeRAM in Car Infotainment

The use of FeRAM in car infotainment systems offers the following advantages:

・Even when the engine is turned off, settings and GPS location information are retained, allowing the system to be used from the state before the engine was turned off and start driving immediately next time.

・When using EEPROM or Flash, data writing takes a long time, requiring the use of large physical supercapacitors whereas FeRAM does not require supercapacitors and can be used in high-temperature environments.