DRAM Makers Developing Next-Generation Memory Interface
Portable Design News, Wednesday April 30, 2008
ARM, Hynix Semiconductor, Inc., Silicon Image, Inc., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, and ST Microelectronics have announced the formation of a working group committed to creating an open standard for next generation memory interface technology.
This first-of-its-kind memory standard for dynamic random access memory (DRAM), named Serial Port Memory Technology (SPMT), enables bandwidth flexibility, significantly reduced pin count, lower power demand and multiple ports by using a serial interface instead of the parallel interface commonly used in today’s memory devices. This technology is ideal for mobile handset manufacturers who are incorporating more media-rich features requiring higher performance at lower system cost.
“As DRAM content continues to grow for the new generation of mobile devices, it is becoming increasing difficult for current technologies to keep up with the demand for greater bandwidth, more power reduction, and design flexibility without significantly increasing cost,” Jim Venable head of Silicon Image’s Advanced Memory Technology Products told Portable Design. “Serial Port Memory Technology will be a game-changer in the way mobile device developers design new products that deliver significant performance improvements and a higher quality user experience.
The SPMT Working Group’s goal is to define a technology that reduces pin count by a minimum of forty percent, provides a bandwidth range from 3.2 GB/s to 12.6 GB/s and higher, reduces input/output power by fifty percent or more over other currently available DRAM offerings, and provides the ability to use either a single port or multiple ports into a single SPMT-enabled memory chip. Venable sees SPDRAM as the natural successor to LPDDR2, extending the DRAM technology roadmap out to 2016 and beyond.
While initially targeted at the mobile handset market, the technology will also be in demand by other markets such as portable media players, digital still cameras and handheld gaming devices.
The Working Group came together to develop a new technology to meet the growing demand by manufacturers to increase the performance and functionality of handsets while maintaining competitive or even reduced system cost for the devices. This is in response to mobile service providers’ demand for solutions enabling them to give consumers more data intensive, media-rich capabilities such as video (including high-definition video), GPS, gaming, Internet access, e-mail, multimedia applications and music at a competitive price.
Data paths in portable designs are going more serial in order to reconcile higher data rates, the demand for greater functionality and the need to lower, not raise, chip pin count. The latter will enable DRAM manufacturers, who watch their margins erode daily, to reduce the overall chip cost by going to smaller packages.
The SPMT Working Group has been meeting since the third quarter of 2007 and is expected to organize a formal consortium later this year consisting of handset, memory and system-on-chip manufacturers and semiconductor IP providers with the intention of bringing the SPMT specification to the industry by the end of 2008.
Venable told Portable Design that the group is divided over whether to submit their specification to the IEEE or other standards body for formal verification. If not, though an ‘open standard’, each vendor would be free to implement it in their own fashion. This could lead to the numerous ‘forks’ that are common to Linux, so don’t expect pin compatibility between SPMT DRAMs from Hynix and ST devices any time soon. Still, a recognized serial DRAM standard would make life easier for portable designers and device makers alike.
“The need for faster, denser DRAM chips for handsets will continue to grow, particularly as the requirement for media-rich functionality escalates,” claims Nam Hyung Kim, memory analyst at iSuppli. “It makes sense to develop an interface standard for DRAM integrating serial technology that offers a way to achieve higher bandwidth, pin count reduction and scalability not achievable with current interface technologies.”
Silicon Image, Sunnyvale, CA (408) 616-4000 [www.siliconimage.com]
This first-of-its-kind memory standard for dynamic random access memory (DRAM), named Serial Port Memory Technology (SPMT), enables bandwidth flexibility, significantly reduced pin count, lower power demand and multiple ports by using a serial interface instead of the parallel interface commonly used in today’s memory devices. This technology is ideal for mobile handset manufacturers who are incorporating more media-rich features requiring higher performance at lower system cost.
“As DRAM content continues to grow for the new generation of mobile devices, it is becoming increasing difficult for current technologies to keep up with the demand for greater bandwidth, more power reduction, and design flexibility without significantly increasing cost,” Jim Venable head of Silicon Image’s Advanced Memory Technology Products told Portable Design. “Serial Port Memory Technology will be a game-changer in the way mobile device developers design new products that deliver significant performance improvements and a higher quality user experience.
The SPMT Working Group’s goal is to define a technology that reduces pin count by a minimum of forty percent, provides a bandwidth range from 3.2 GB/s to 12.6 GB/s and higher, reduces input/output power by fifty percent or more over other currently available DRAM offerings, and provides the ability to use either a single port or multiple ports into a single SPMT-enabled memory chip. Venable sees SPDRAM as the natural successor to LPDDR2, extending the DRAM technology roadmap out to 2016 and beyond.
While initially targeted at the mobile handset market, the technology will also be in demand by other markets such as portable media players, digital still cameras and handheld gaming devices.
The Working Group came together to develop a new technology to meet the growing demand by manufacturers to increase the performance and functionality of handsets while maintaining competitive or even reduced system cost for the devices. This is in response to mobile service providers’ demand for solutions enabling them to give consumers more data intensive, media-rich capabilities such as video (including high-definition video), GPS, gaming, Internet access, e-mail, multimedia applications and music at a competitive price.
Data paths in portable designs are going more serial in order to reconcile higher data rates, the demand for greater functionality and the need to lower, not raise, chip pin count. The latter will enable DRAM manufacturers, who watch their margins erode daily, to reduce the overall chip cost by going to smaller packages.
The SPMT Working Group has been meeting since the third quarter of 2007 and is expected to organize a formal consortium later this year consisting of handset, memory and system-on-chip manufacturers and semiconductor IP providers with the intention of bringing the SPMT specification to the industry by the end of 2008.
Venable told Portable Design that the group is divided over whether to submit their specification to the IEEE or other standards body for formal verification. If not, though an ‘open standard’, each vendor would be free to implement it in their own fashion. This could lead to the numerous ‘forks’ that are common to Linux, so don’t expect pin compatibility between SPMT DRAMs from Hynix and ST devices any time soon. Still, a recognized serial DRAM standard would make life easier for portable designers and device makers alike.
“The need for faster, denser DRAM chips for handsets will continue to grow, particularly as the requirement for media-rich functionality escalates,” claims Nam Hyung Kim, memory analyst at iSuppli. “It makes sense to develop an interface standard for DRAM integrating serial technology that offers a way to achieve higher bandwidth, pin count reduction and scalability not achievable with current interface technologies.”
Silicon Image, Sunnyvale, CA (408) 616-4000 [www.siliconimage.com]
John Donovan -- Editor-in-Chief
