Synchronous-DRAM Controller for Intel Microcontroller and x86 Processors

The Synchronous-DRAM controller core allows any synchronous bus masters, such as most Intel microcontroller and x86 processors, to effortlessly interface to a large capacity SDRAM as though it were an SRAM. The core supports PC100 timing specifications.

By default the core is configured to work with 512K x 2 Bank x 32-bit SDRAMs such as Samsung KM432S2030CT and Fujitsu MB81F643242B. Easy modifications allows the core to work with different capacity SDRAMs. Most of the critical parameters are defines in a global include file allowing easy reconfigurability of the core.

The core handles much of the low level functions such as address multiplexing, refresh generation and busy status generation. In addtion, the non-trivial powerup initialization sequence is also handled transparently to the host. Flexible refresh generation permits burst refresh, normal refresh or everything in between. The SDRAM mode-register can also be reprogrammed on the fly by the host, although the core intializes the MRS with a default value. This value can be compile-time adjustable.

The present design only supports 1 transfer per access. An access is a host's request for a read or a write to the SDRAM. A transfer is any data size from 1 byte, 1 word (16bit) or 1 long-word (32 bit). As soon as a multi-longword (i.e. burst) data transfer protocol for the OR1K is adopted, variants of the SDRAM controller supporting it will be offered.

The core also includes a set of synthesiable "test" modules. When enabled for compilation, these test modules becomes a host to the SDRAM controller and issues a series of read/write test sequences to the SDRAM. This allows designers working on FPGA/CPLD platforms to turn the SDRAM controller core into a "stand-alone" SDRAM tester.

The core has been sucessfully tested with a Samsung KM416S1120D SDRAM on Altera Flex10K20 FPGA and :Lattice isp3256 CPLD devices (using the built-in tester).

IMAGE: intefacing block diagram.gif

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DESCRIPTION: Picture 1: Interfacing block diagram

Status

- Initial stable version avaible for down load : Use tag "sdram_8Mb_2Mx32_020200" - Fully parameterized version to be available. Use tag "sdram_param" - Working documentation (72 KB) is available in Adobe PDF format.