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FRAMs find home in US utility meters

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Sep 27, 2006

Ramtron FRAM products have been designed into pay as you go utility meters by Ampy Automation for the Salt River Project (SRP), based in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.

Ramtron FRAM products have been designed into pay as you go utility meters by Ampy Automation for the Salt River Project (SRP), based in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.

At present, Ampy Automation intends to deploy as many as 100,000 prepayment meters over the next 24 months for the SRP M-Power programme.

The meters incorporate a two-way communication capability that offers enhanced functionality including automatic meter reading (AMR), online enquiries, remote connect/disconnect, and complex rate structures.

The meters also enable customers to exercise more control over their energy consumption, leading to cost savings and more efficient energy distribution.

"FRAM usage in the Salt River Project meters is another example of FRAM's growing acceptance among advanced metering solution providers", said Ramtron CEO Bill Staunton.

"We are pleased that Ampy Automation continues to specify FRAM for its line of advanced metering products".

FRAM's unique performance characteristics are ideally suited for advanced metering products since they require higher data collection rates than meters of the past.

FRAM offers faster write speed and much higher write endurance than older nonvolatile memory technologies such as Flash and EEPROM.

Thanks to its leading-edge features, Ramtron's FRAM is being used worldwide in a multitude of advanced utility meter products including the world's largest advanced meter management (AMM) project in Italy, with over 27 million connected electricity meters.