Intel Evaluation Platform Board Manual IQ80960RM - Manual (Page 22)

3-2 IQ80960RM/RN Evaluation Board Manual
Hardware Reference
3.2.1 SDRAM Performance
The IQ80960RM/RN platform uses 72-bit SDRAM with ECC or 64-bit SDRAM without ECC.
SDRAM allows zero data-to-data wait state operation at 66 MHz. The memory controller unit
(MCU) of the i960
®
RM/RN I/O processor supports SDRAM burst lengths of four. A burst length
of four enables seamless read/write bursting of long data streams, as long as the MCU does not
cross the page boundary. Page boundaries are naturally aligned 2 Kbyte blocks. 72-bit SDRAM
with ECC allows a maximum throughput of 528 Mbytes per second.
Both 16 Mbit and 64 Mbit SDRAM devices are supported. The MCU keeps two pages per bank
open simultaneously for 16 Mbit devices and 4 pages per bank for 64 Mbit devices. Simultaneously
open pages allow for greater performance for sequential access, distributed across multiple internal
bus transactions.
Table 3-3 shows read and write examples of a single 8 byte access and for a
multiple 40 byte access.
Note that if ECC is enabled and you attempt a partial write — less than 64 bits — you will incur a
penalty. Because ECC is enabled, the MCU will translate the write into a read-modify-write
transaction. Therefore, for a single byte write the clock count will be 11.
Table 3-3. SDRAM Performance
Cycle Type Table Clocks Performance Bandwidth
Read Page Hit (8 bytes) 7 76 Mbytes/sec
Read Page Miss (8 bytes) 12 44 Mbytes/sec
Read Page Hit (40 bytes) 11 240 Mbytes/sec
Read Page Miss (40 bytes) 16 165 Mbytes/sec
Write Page Hit (8 bytes) 4 132 Mbytes/sec
Write Page Miss (8 bytes) 8 66 Mbytes/sec
Write Page Hit (40 bytes) 8 330 Mbytes/sec
Write Page Miss (40 bytes) 12 220 Mbytes/sec