Using FLASH NOR chip instead of micro SD card.

[tapasxplore]

Hi,

I am interested in making project, where using micoSD cable itself we can transfer audio from the audio adapter, not by physically removing the card. I got to know about project from adafruit. Where they are using FLASH NOR, which can be accessed through SPI serial interface. Can I directly connect the FLASH NOR replacing micoSD card, will it work.

Regards,

tapasXplore

[tonton81]

you will still need a processor (usb host) to dump the files onto the nand chip, then after re-wire it to your teensy, the adafruit device has a processor that allows the nand flash to load as a usb mass storage, however, as you read on, the mcu itself is NOT programmable, because, it's a separate connection they neglected to add in order to make this product a standalone feature with only ability is to load audio files on it's mass storage device

[grease_lighting]

You don't specify where the microSD cable plugs into. Surely if plugging into a Teensy project equiped for an SD card via SPI could work, but I'm not sure how SD Card is implemented on say a PC or MAC. They could rely on a different communications method that the Flash does not support. You also seem to want to 'share' access to the SD Card (Flash) between two devices which would require a two port MUX to route data to/from either device from/to the NOR flash. Coincident access resolution extra. I also looked at the NOR Flash data sheet and it is only 2-meg bytes. Would that have enough capacity for your app? Is there a driver available for that chip? Do you have the skills to design and build a fine pitch PCB? Just some things to consider.

[tonton81]

Also, if your using a T3.5/T3.6, the SD cards are bigger in size and have very fast read/write capabilities with 4bit SPI @ 50mhz, 86mhz for the nand but requires a host to reprogram it

[PaulStoffregen]

Give the SerialFlash library a try. It's been tested with other similar Macronix chips, so odds are good this one will work.