These little chips are like miniature SSD drives for your electronics. When you don’t need something with as much storage as a micro SD card, but an EEPROM is too small, SPI (or QSPI) Flash chips give you on-the-order-of megabytes, with little cost and complexity. We use these chips all the time on our CircuitPython boards to let folks store code and assets like animations, fonts, images, configurations, audio clips, etc! A great way to add datalogging storage as well.
This chip has 2 MByte of non-volatile storage (16 mega-bits) and is well supported by CircuitPython and also our Arduino SPI Flash library. The standard SOIC size is fairly easy to solder, and it has the standard FLASH chip pinout so its good for just about any FLASH use including FPGAs or flash-less microcontrollers
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.