RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY

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GROUP:5
MEMBERS: PHILIP G. DALANON JOHN HENRY CLEMENTE MARLON ABERIN ELIOSA DE TORRES
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RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY

Sequential circuits all depend upon the presence of memory.

A flip-flop can store one bit of information. A register can store a single word, typically 32-64 bits.

Random access memory, or RAM, allows us to store even larger amounts of data. Today well see:

The basic interface to memory. How you can implement static RAM chips hierarchically.

This is the last piece we need to put together a computer!

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TYPES OF RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY

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INTRODUCTION TO RAM

Random-access memory, or RAM, provides large quantities of temporary storage in a computer system. Remember the basic capabilities of a memory:

It should be able to store a value. You should be able to read the value that was saved. You should be able to change the stored value.

A RAM is similar, except that it can store many values.

An address will specify which memory value were interested in. Each value can be a multiple-bit word (e.g., 32 bits).
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Well refine the memory properties as follows:

EXAMPLE OF INTRODUCTION TO RAM

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STATIC MEMORY

How can you implement the memory chip? There are many different kinds of RAM.

Well start off discussing static memory, which is most commonly used in caches and video cards. Later we mention a little about dynamic memory, which forms the bulk of a computers main memory.

Static memory is modeled using one latch for each bit of storage. Why use latches instead of flip flops?

A latch can be made with only two NAND or two NOR gates, but a flip-flop requires at least twice that much hardware. In general, smaller is faster, cheaper and requires less power. The tradeoff is that getting the timing exactly right is a pain.
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EXAMPLE OF STATIC MEMORY

- Static memory is more expensive to produce than Dynamic memory, .

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HISTORY OF RAM

Early computers used relays, or delay lines for "main" memory functions. Ultrasonic delay lines could only reproduce data in the order it was written. Drum memory could be expanded at low cost but retrieval of non-sequential memory items required knowledge of the physical layout of the drum to optimize speed. Latches built out of vacuum tube triodes, and later, out of discretetransistors, were used for smaller and faster memories such as random-access register banks and registers. Such registers were relatively large, power-hungry and too costly to use for large amounts of data; generally only a few hundred or few thousand bits of such memory could be provided.
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Random Access Memory

HISTORY

The first practical form of random-access memory was the Williams tube starting in 1947. It stored data as electrically-charged spots on the face of a cathode ray tube. Since the electron beam of the CRT could read and write the spots on the tube in any order, memory was random-access. The capacity of the Williams tube was a few hundred to around a thousand bits, but it was much smaller, faster, and more power-efficient than using individual vacuum tube latches.
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EXAMPLE OF HISTORY

1 Megabit chip - one of the last models developed by VEB Carl Zeiss Jena in 1989
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TYPES OF RAM

The two main forms of modern RAM are static RAM (SRAM) and dynamic RAM (DRAM). In static RAM, a bit of data is stored using the state of a flip-flop. This form of RAM is more expensive to produce, but is generally faster and requires less power than DRAM and, in modern computers, is often used as cache memory for the CPU. DRAM stores a bit of data using a transistor and capacitor pair, which together comprise a memory cell. The capacitor holds a high or low charge (1 or 0, respectively), and the transistor acts as a switch that lets the control circuitry on the chip read the capacitor's state of charge or change it. As this form of memory is less expensive to produce than static RAM, it is the predominant form of computer memory used in modern computers. Random Access Memory

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EXAMPLE OF DYNAMIC RANDOM-ACCESS MEMORY(DRAM)

Dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be either charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1. Since capacitors leak charge, the information eventually fades unless the capacitor charge is refreshedperiodically. Because of this refresh requirement, it is a dynamic memory as opposed to SRAM and other static memory.
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EXAMPLE OF DYNAMIC RANDOM-ACCESS MEMORY(DRAM)

The second memory chip on the board - marked HM514260AJ8 - is manufactured by Hitachi and appears to be an additional 256 KB of DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory).
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MEMORY HIERARCHY

One can read and over-write data in RAM. Many computer systems have a memory hierarchy consisting of CPU registers, on-die SRAM caches, external caches, DRAM, pagingsystems, and virtual memory or swap space on a hard drive. This entire pool of memory may be referred to as "RAM" by many developers, even though the various subsystems can have very different access times, violating the original concept behind the random access term in RAM. Even within a hierarchy level such as DRAM, the specific row, column, bank,rank, channel, or interleave organization of the components make the access time variable, although not to the extent that rotating storage media or a tape is variable. The overall goal of using a memory hierarchy is to obtain the higher possible average access performance while minimizing the total cost of the entire memory system (generally, the memory hierarchy follows the access time with the fast CPU registers at the top and the slow hard drive at the bottom).
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EXAMPLE OF MEMORY HIERARCHY

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OTHER USES OF RAM

Other uses of RAM In addition to serving as temporary storage and working space for the operating system and applications, RAM is used in numerous other ways.

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RAM DISK

Software can "partition" a portion of a computer's RAM, allowing it to act as a much faster hard drive that is called a RAM disk. A RAM disk loses the stored data when the computer is shut down, unless memory is arranged to have a standby battery source.

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EXAMPLE OF RAM DISK

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Random Access Memory

SUMMARY

A RAM looks like a bunch of registers connected together, allowing users to select a particular address to read or write. Much of the hardware in memory chips supports this selection process:

Chip select inputs Decoders Tri-state buffers

By providing a general interface, its easy to connect RAMs together to make longer and wider memories. Next, well look at some other types of memories We now have all the components we need to build our simple processor.

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