I have a little project where I'm using an SiLabs F314 chip. For this app, I don't need any of the analog peripherals but I do need I2C. The 1K of SRAM in XDATA space is helpful, and the part has 8K flash which I'm nowhere near fully utilizing.

A neat feature of my app is the ability to save a bunch of different configurations. Each configuration is simply eight bytes where each bit controls something. 32 configurations means I need 256 bytes of storage, which is half a page in the F314 flash.

The problem: accessing both XRAM and the flash use MOVX and so access to these resources is mutually exclusive. You can't copy the contents of a page of the flash directly into the XRAM, nor can you do the converse.

As the psychotic penguins in the film Madagascar remarked upon reaching Antarctica, "This sucks." 'twould be useful indeed if one could read a whole page from flash into XRAM, modify it, then write the whole page back, but you can't. Phooey.

The good news is that a 24LC02 I2C EPROM costs a quarter. But it's still a chip I shouldn't need!

-a