GD25Q16 - 2MB SPI Flash in 8-Pin SOIC package (ADA4763)

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This is a placeholder topic for “GD25Q16 - 2MB SPI Flash in 8-Pin SOIC package” comments.

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. Adafruit use these chips all the time on Adafruit’s 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.

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Can someone link me to a trusted datasheet for this chip?
(… and how they knew the right search term so I can know for next time?)

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Here’s the datasheet from our upstream supplier Adafruit. I’ll add it to the product page.

For these kinds of chip, just searching for 25Q16 ought to be enough to get over the line.

25 demarks it’s a flash chip
Q demarks it’s a 3V device
16 demarks the memory capacity

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Thanks @Michael.

I think prepending Adafruit to my searches were leading me astray. I didn’t realize GD stood for Gigadevice.

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If I want to write to this from a 5V microcontroller I could use this… right?

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Yes! To power the chip if you’re working with a bare microcontroller rather than a dev. board that may already have a 3.3v output somewhere.

You’ll also have to convert the logic levels between 5V and 3.3V, else your 5V logic device will destroy the 3.3V device

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Hi.
Now that I have it and have seen it in person… pretty small. :stuck_out_tongue:
How am I meant to solder this or connect this to anything?
Pix :heavy_heart_exclamation:

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Welcome to the world of Surface Mount Technology, Pix :smiley:
If you’ve done some miles soldering through-hole parts, an 8-pin SOIC isn’t so bad.

You have a couple options:

1. High skill, can do right now, delicate.
Solder breakout wires onto the SOIC package and connect to 0.1" (2.54mm) headers to expand the chip so you can connect it to standard protoboard / breadboard

2. Lower skill, flexible prototyping purchase
We designed an SMT Protoboard that is perfect for these kinds of devices

3. specific products

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Hi @Michael
Thanks for taking the time to help answer my question :slight_smile:
Hope you had a lovely Christmas :christmas_tree:

I had looked at this when I was browsing around. I don’t quite know what I’m looking at yet.
It looks like every hole is connected to every other hole by gold platting?
What’s stopping infinite short circuits?

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I think this is a miniature version of that stuff with tracks on both sides at 90 degrees to each other, where you tickle some of the holes with a drillbit to carve out your circuit.

…Actually nah, now I look at the vid, this board just provides extensions for little SMD pads so you can connect hookup wire. The holes only connect front to back, not to each other.

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So it’s like a breadboard but nothing is connected?

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Seems so; I think the point is just to give you something to solder SMDs to that you can also solder wires to. I can totally understand why it has become a thing.

There was also talk in the vid about the ground plane which surrounds all the through-holes on the back, something-something high frequency something-something

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That’s correct guys - the front side provides SMT pads that can help break-out the pins of an SMT device. you can connect the pads to standard through-holes.

The back side is essentially a “ground pour” which means you can connect your ground to the plane and distribute it easily to other points on the board.

It’s intended to serve as a convenient breakout / prototyping platform.

(if it all seems too involved perhaps a dedicated breakout PCB like i mentioned before would be more straightforward.)

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