Important Customer Bulletin
Discontinuance of Flash Chip Used on Rabbit Semiconductor Products
February 25, 2002
Due to the discontinuance of smaller sector Flash memory chips by our
supplier, Mosel, many Rabbit Semiconductor products are being redesigned
using alternative chips with 4K byte sectors.
Rabbit Semiconductor hardware with the new Flash chip will start shipping
as early as April 1, 2002. The change will be phased in across the following
products and product lines as existing supplies are depleted (not necessarily
in the order shown below):
RabbitCore modules: RCM20XX, RCM21XX, RCM22XX, RCM23XX
Ethernet Connectivity: EG2100
Dynamic C has been modified to maintain optimal download and debugging
performance, as well as binary compatibility with existing programs. Dynamic
C Premier customers should upgrade to Premier 7.20 as soon as possible
to ensure compatibility with the above hardware. Customers using Dynamic
C SE should download the SE 7.20 patch as soon as possible.
Uses of prior versions of Dynamic C will experience degraded download
and debug performance with any of the above products acquired after the
Flash changes starting April 1, 2002. Dynamic C 7.20 is completely compatible
with products that use the new Flash chip, the old Flash chip, and other
compatible Flash chips. (Refer to the Rabbit 2000 Designer's Handbook
at www.rabbitsemiconductor.com for information on compatible Flash chips.)
Binary compatibility is an issue for customers who program new production
units with precompiled binary images that were compiled with older Dynamic
C versions only if:
1) the program writes to Flash at run-time,
2) the precompiled binary images are loaded to new production units using
Dynamic C, the Rabbit Field Utility (RFU) or "cloning."
Refer to our tech note TN217, Binary and Source Compatibility Issues
for 4K Flash Sector Sizes (on
our website Tech Support section) for more details.
Free downloads to Dynamic C 7.20 (Premier and SE versions) will be available
the first week of March 2002 on our website at www.rabbitsemiconductor.com.
Rabbit Semiconductor customers wishing to purchase any of the original
small sector Flash chip or to get for more information should contact
their Rabbit Sales Representative at 530.757.8400.
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