Dual-Port SDRAM Optimization with Semaphore Authority Management Controller

摘要

This paper proposes the semaphore authority management (SAM) controller to optimize the dual-port SDRAM (DPSDRAM) in the mobile multimedia systems. Recently, the DPSDRAM with a shared bank enabling the exchange of data between two processors at high speed has been developed for mobile multimedia systems based on dual-processors. However, the latency of DPSDRAM caused by the semaphore for preventing the access contention at the shared bank slows down the data transfer rate and reduces the memory bandwidth. The methodology of SAM increases the data transfer rate by minimizing the semaphore latency. The SAM prevents the latency of reading the semaphore register of DPSDRAM, and reduces the latency of waiting for the authority of the shared bank to be changed. It also reduces the number of authority requests and the number of times authority changes. The experimental results using a 1 Gb DPSDRAM (OneDRAM) with the SAM controllers at 66 MHz show 1.6 times improvement of the data transfer rate between two processors compared with the traditional controller. In addition, the SAM shows bandwidth enhancement of up to 38% for port A and 31% for port B compared with the traditional controller.