Cascading Techniques for a High-Speed Memory Interface

A memory interface operating up to 5.3Gb/s in a 70nm standard DRAM process is presented. The interface uses differential point-to-point signaling in a chain of 6 devices, in transparent- or resample-repeat mode. Transparent-repeat mode measurements at 4.8Gb/s show eye reduction of 8% Ul per device due to jitter accumulation. The last device in the repeat chain has an eye opening of 0.5UI at BER < 1012. The transparent-repeat mode consumes 40% less power and has 80% less latency than resample mode

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