Arria® 10 Core Fabric and General Purpose I/Os Handbook

ID 683461
Date 7/08/2024
Public
Document Table of Contents

6.7.1.1.1. Hard Memory Controller Features

Table 92.  Features of the Arria® 10 Hard Memory Controller

Feature

Description

Memory devices support

Supports the following memory devices:

  • DDR4 SDRAM
  • DDR3 SDRAM
  • LPDDR3 for low power
Memory controller support
  • Custom controller support—configurable bypass mode that allows you to bypass the hard memory controller and use custom controller.
  • Ping Pong controller—allows two instances of the hard memory controller to time-share the same set of address/command pins.
Interface protocols support
  • Supports Avalon-MM and Avalon-ST interfaces.
  • The PHY interface adheres to the AFI protocol.
Rate support You can configure the controller to run at half rate or quarter rate.
Configurable memory interface width

Supports widths from 8 to 144 bits, in 8 bits increments.

Multiple ranks support Supports up to 4 ranks.
Burst adaptor Able to accept bursts of any size up to a maximum burst length of 127 on the local interface of the controller and map the bursts to efficient memory commands.
Note: For applications that must strictly adhere to the Avalon® -MM specification, the maximum burst length is 64.
Efficiency optimization features
  • Open-page policy—by default, data traffic is closed-page on every access. However, the controller intelligently keep a row open based on incoming traffic, which can improve the efficiency of the controller especially for random traffic.
  • Pre-emptive bank management—the controller is able to issue bank management commands early, which ensure that the required row is open when the read or write occurs.
  • Data reordering—the controller reorders read/write commands.
  • Additive latency—the controller can issue a READ/WRITE command after the ACTIVATE command to the memory bank prior to tRCD, which increases the command efficiency.
User requested priority You can assign priority to commands. This feature allows you to specify that higher priority commands get issued earlier to reduce latency.
Starvation counter Ensures all requests are served after a predefined time out period, which ensures that low priority access are not left behind while reordering data for efficiency.
Timing for address/command bus

To maximize command bandwidth, you can double the number of memory commands in one controller clock cycle:

  • Quasi-1T addressing for half-rate address/command bus.
  • Quasi-2T addressing for quarter-rate address/command bus.
Bank interleaving Able to issue read or write commands continuously to "random" addresses. You must correctly cycle the bank addresses.
On-die termination The controller controls the on-die termination signal for the memory. This feature improves signal integrity and simplifies your board design.
Refresh features
  • User-controlled refresh timing—optionally, you can control when refreshes occur and this allows you to prevent important read or write operations from clashing with the refresh lock-out time.
  • Per-rank refresh—allows refresh for each individual rank.
  • Controller-controlled refresh.
ECC support
  • 8 bit ECC code; single error correction, double error detection (SECDED).
  • User ECC supporting pass through user ECC bits as part of data bits.
Power saving features
  • Low power modes (power down and self-refresh)—optionally, you can request the controller to put the memory into one of the two low power states.
  • Automatic power down—puts the memory device in power down mode when the controller is idle. You can configure the idle waiting time.
  • Memory clock gating.
Mode register set Access the memory mode register.
DDR4 features
  • Bank group support—supports different timing parameters for between bank groups.
  • Data Bus CRC—data bus encoding and decoding.
  • Command/Address parity—command and address bus parity check.
  • Alert reporting—responds to the error alert flag.
  • Multipurpose register access— supports multipurpose register access in serial readout mode.
  • Fine granularity refresh—supports 1x, 2x, and 4x fixed refresh rates.
  • Temperature controlled refresh—adjust refresh rate according to temperature range.
  • Low power auto self refresh— operating temperature triggered auto adjustment to self refresh rate.
  • Maximum power saving.
LPDDR3 feature
  • Deep power down mode—achieves maximum power reduction by eliminating power to memory array. Data is not retained when the device enters the deep power down mode.
  • Partial array self refresh.
  • Per bank refresh.
ZQ calibration command Support long or short ZQ calibration command for DDR3 or DDR4.