I am creating a physical link of a Xilinx S6 (with 2 memory controller blocks) to a DDR3 Micron RAM. Basically this is the first time I am using a MCB rather than a softcore and I found some issues / differences. I am a bit confused about the usage of the RZQ and ZIO pins and the method of "Calibrated Input Termination". Furthermore I do not use EDK in order to setup a power PC/Microblaze to access the core's bus but will have to do that the low level way. Does anybody know/have simple design pushing some bytes into the controller and bringing the back? I have a spartan demo board and went though the MIG Design Demo, which did not give me all the answers. For the first, I need to know about the wiring and external termination to rout the board correctly. Any help is appreciated.
The two Pins mentioned are AFAIK required by the physical controller. Xilinx has some explanation in their docs.
Ok, I got some information in the meanwhile, so these two pins are a minor issue now. What bothers be more are design aspects like termination. Specs from Micron do contradict some recommendations I found in the xilinx' docs and also the PCB doc shows different routing and termination than expected. For example, I do not find the data and adresss signals beeing terminated. Moreover the coregen seems to be buggy and does not lead to a synthesizeable design, which I could test in order to find out about certain issues myself.
Modern DDR memory chips use on-die termination, which is controlled by the ODT line. In order to get the MIG design to run, you definitely need to modify the top-level HDL of the generated design (usually located in ipcore_dir/core_name/user_design), especially regarding the clock frequency parameters to fit to your hardware. Hope this helps.
> Modern DDR memory chips use on-die termination, which is > controlled by the ODT line. Hm, I am following the discussion, since I also intend to do a design with DDR3 (FPGA not yet decided). I have read the micron's manual and also find termination resistor recommendations. From your words ODT is the best practise so to speak?
ok, thanks for your help so far. Regarding modifying the design: The wrapper seams to instantiate it's own PLL. What do I have to select for the clock? Is it necessary to feed that directly from an IO pin? Will it require it's own osc? Or in other words - Can I use the generated PLL also for my design?
Aother Question: From the micron's manual, there is a note like that: "regardless of bus type, all DDR signals must be referenced to VSS or VDD plane." Does that mean, they have to be "terminated" or routed "next to" / "on top of" a vss plane?
Hallo Thomas, >"regardless of bus type, all DDR signals must be referenced to VSS or VDD plane." >Does that mean, they have to be "terminated" or routed "next to" / "on top of" a vss plane? This means, that all signal should be referenced to a planed layer. Vanilla
Hallo Schwabenpaule, > Regarding modifying the design: The wrapper seams to instantiate it's own PLL. What do I have to select for the clock? > Is it necessary to feed that directly from an IO pin? Will it require it's own osc? > Or in other words - Can I use the generated PLL also for my design The CoreGenerater will create the PLL instance for you. You will get a HDL description. You are free to modify this, and probably add and modify the PLL to provide additional frequencies. About feeding directly from IO-Pin. This is (highly) recomended from Xilinx to avoid additional jitter. There are also recomendations to use the dedicated PLL ancient to the used MPMC. you might use one PLL for MPMCs on the opposite MPMC side, but this also adds jitter to the clock and migt be crittical if running the MPMCs at the maximum supported speed. best regards Vanilla
what you mean with "referenced"? does this mean "terminated to this plane"?
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