Digital System Design
Lecture 6 -Memory device
Instructors:
Dr. Nguyen Tuan Khanh, postdoc, [email protected]
M.Sc. Nguyen Vo That Thuyet, lab engineer, [email protected]
Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)
Faculty of Engineering, Vietnamese-German University, Vietnam
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Sep. 2024
Introduction
• An advantage of digital systems: the ability to easily store large quantities of digital
information.
• E.g., the memory of a computer stores instructions telling the
computer what to do under all possible circumstances.
• Groups of FFs (registers) can be used to store and transfer information
to other locations.
• Advances in LSI and VLSI technology results in large
numbers of FFs on a single chip in various memory-array
formats.
• Digital data can also be stored as charges on capacitors, to
obtain high-density storage at low power-requirement
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levels.
Introduction
• Main memory
• Working memory: fast operation is
important.
• A program and any data used by
the program reside here.
• RAM and ROM.
• (Auxiliary) mass storage:
• Store massive amounts of data
without electrical power, slower
operation.
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MEMORY TERMINOLOGY
Memory Cell A device or an electrical circuit used to store a single bit.
E.g., a flip-flop, a charged capacitor, and a single spot on magnetic tape or disk
Memory A group of bits (cells) in a memory that represents instructions or data of
Word some type.
E.g., a register of 8 FFs can be considered to be a memory storing an 8-bit
word.
Word = 8 to 64 bits, depending on the size of the computer.
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MEMORY TERMINOLOGY
Byte A group of 8 bits.
Capacity A way of specifying how many bits can be stored in a particular memory
device or complete memory system.
E.g., a memory stores 4096 20-bit words = 81,920 bits = 4096 × 20 = 4K × 20
1K = 210 = 1,024
1M = 220 = 1,048,576
1G = 230 = 1,073,741,824
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12-1 MEMORY TERMINOLOGY
Read Operation The binary word stored in a specific memory location (address) is sensed and
(Fetch then transferred to another device.
operation)
E.g., to use word 4, we must perform a read
operation on address 100.
Write A new word is placed into a particular memory
Operation location.
(Store
operation) The new word replaces the word that was
previously stored there.
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MEMORY TERMINOLOGY
Volatile Any type of memory that requires the application of electrical power in
Memory order to store information.
If the electrical power is removed, all information will be lost.
Random-Access Memory in which reading and writing times do not depend on the actual
Memory (RAM) physical location of the word.
The access time is the same for any address. Most semiconductor memories
are RAMs.
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MEMORY TERMINOLOGY
Sequential- Memory in which the access time is not constant
Access Memory but varies depending on the address location.
(SAM)
It sequences through all address locations until
the desired address is reached.
Audio tape is a SAM
The access time is much longer than random-
access memories.
The RAM counterpart to an audio tape is an audio
CD.
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MEMORY TERMINOLOGY
Read/ Any memory that can be read from or written into with equal ease.
Write Memory
(RWM)
Read-Only Semiconductor memories designed for applications where reading is very
Memory (ROM) much more often than writing.
Can be written (programmed) once at the
factory.
Can be read-mostly memories (RMM) and
written more than once. Writing is much
more complicated than reading.
All ROMs are non-volatile. 9
MEMORY TERMINOLOGY
Static Memory Semiconductor memory devices (SMDs) in which the stored data will remain
Devices permanently stored as long as power is applied, without refreshing.
Refresh: periodically rewriting the data into memory.
Dynamic SMDs in which the stored data
Memory Devices will not remain permanently,
even with power applied,
unless refreshed.
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MEMORY TERMINOLOGY
Main Memory Storing instructions and data the CPU is
(computer’s currently working on.
working
memory) It is the highest-speed memory in the
computer and is always a semiconductor
memory.
Auxiliary Storing massive amounts of information external to the main memory.
Memory
(mass storage) Slower than main memory and always non-volatile.
E.g., magnetic disks and CDs.
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GENERAL MEMORY OPERATION
• Functions:
1. Select the address in memory accessed for a read or write operation.
2. Select either a read or a write operation to be performed.
3. Supply the input data to be stored in memory during a write operation.
4. Hold the output data coming from memory during a read operation.
5. Enable (or disable) the memory so that it will (or will not) respond to the address inputs
and read/write command.
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GENERAL MEMORY OPERATION
• Functions: Diagram of a 32×4 memory Virtual arrangement of memory
cells into 32 4-bit words
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GENERAL MEMORY OPERATION
• Simplified illustration of the read and write operations on the 32×4 memory
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EXPANDING/WORD SIZE
• Combining two 16 × 4 RAMs for a 16 × 8 RAM
Address
Control
Data 15
EXPANDING/WORD SIZE
• Combining two 16 × 4 RAMs for a 16 × 8 RAM
16 × 4 RAM 0 16 × 4 RAM 1 16 × 8 RAM
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EXPANDING/WORD SIZE
• Combining two 16 × 4 RAMs for a 16 × 8 RAM
• Address range 0000 to 1111 (16 words)
Word size 8 bits
• The 4 higher-order bits of each word
are stored in RAM-0.
• The 4 lower-order bits of each word
are stored in RAM-1.
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EXPANDING/WORD SIZE
• Steps:
• Connect all address/control inputs with the
same position of all component chips:
• E.g., A3 of RAM-0 and A3 of RAM-1 to A3
of the combined RAM
• E.g., CS of RAM-0 and CS of RAM-1 of CS
of the combined RAM
• Connect each data pin of each component
chip to a different data pin of the combined
chip to form a bigger word
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EXPANDING/CAPACITY
• Combining two 16 × 4 RAMs for a 32 × 4 RAM
Address
Control
Data 19
EXPANDING/CAPACITY
• Combining two 16 × 4 RAMs for • Combining two 16 × 4 RAMs for
a 16 × 8 RAM a 32 × 4 RAM
Address Address
Control Control
Data Data 20
EXPANDING/CAPACITY
• Combining two 16 × 4 RAMs for
a 32 × 4 RAM
16 × 4 RAM 0
32 × 4 RAM
16 × 4 RAM 1
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EXPANDING/CAPACITY
• Combining two 16 × 4 RAMs for a
32 × 4 RAM
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EXPANDING/CAPACITY
• Comparing expanding word size and expanding capacity
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