Rambus Inc.

Apple Inc.

Hewlett-packard Development Company, L.p.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Hewlett-packard Company

Other

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Ian P Shaeffer

Kyung Suk Oh

Frederick Abbott Ware

Craig Edward Hampel

Thomas J Giovannini

Ely K Tsern

Bret G Stott

Lei Luo

Liji Gopalakrishnan

Brent Steven Haukness

Benedict C Lau

David A Secker

Steven Cameron Woo

Alok Gupta

Scott C Best

Thomas Vogelsang

Suresh Rajan

James Edward Harris

Ravindranath T Kollipara

Jared L Zerbe

Brian S Leibowitz

Wayne S Richardson

Lawrence Lai

Fan Ho

Akash Bansal

Yuanlong Wang

Amir Amirkhany

Yi Lu

Arun Vaidyanath

Sanku Mukherjee

John Eble

Gary Bela Bronner

Everett Basham

Jeffrey R Wilcox

Christopher D Price

Brett W Degner

Wayne Frederick Ellis

Pierre-Olivier J Martel

Andrew D Myrick

Tristan F Schaap

Corey N Axelowitz

John T Orchard

Eric C Gaertner

Ronald P Songco

Robert W Hill

Mark A Horowitz

Hongzhong Zheng

John Wood Poulton

Kevin S Donnelly

Jade M Kizer

John M Wilson

Michael E Leclerc

Zhan Ping

Jeffrey Charles Swanson

Harry Rogers

Robert Brennan

John Cronan Eble, Iii

Michael W Murphy

Robert D Snyder

Sunil Kumar Vemula

Robert L Ridenour

Fred Ware

William R Allan, Ii

Reese A Schreiber

Collin L Pieper

Francis X Schumacher

Steven L Shrader

Mehmet Günhan Ertosun

Carlos M Calderon

In an integrated circuit component having a command interface to receive commands, a data interface to receive write data during a write-data reception interval, and first and second registers, control circuitry within the integrated circuit component responds to one or more of the commands by storing within the first register and the second register, respectively, a first control value that specifies a first termination to be applied to the data interface during the write-data reception interval, and a second control value that specifies a second termination to be applied to the data interface after the write-data reception interval transpires.

Integrated circuit that applies different data interface terminations during and after write data reception

Systems, among other embodiments, include topologies (data and/or control/address information) between an integrated circuit buffer device (that may be coupled to a master, such as a memory controller) and a plurality of integrated circuit memory devices. For example, data may be provided between the plurality of integrated circuit memory devices and the integrated circuit buffer device using separate segmented (or point-to-point link) signal paths in response to control/address information provided from the integrated circuit buffer device to the plurality of integrated circuit buffer devices using a single fly-by (or bus) signal path. An integrated circuit buffer device enables configurable effective memory organization of the plurality of integrated circuit memory devices. The memory organization represented by the integrated circuit buffer device to a memory controller may be different than the actual memory organization behind or coupled to the integrated circuit buffer device. The buffer device segments and merges the data transferred between the memory controller that expects a particular memory organization and actual memory organization.

Memory system topologies including a memory die stack

Apparatus and methods for operation of a memory controller, memory device and system are described. During operation, the memory controller transmits a read command which specifies that a memory device output data accessed from a memory core. This read command contains information which specifies whether the memory device is to commence outputting of a timing reference signal prior to commencing outputting of the data. The memory controller receives the timing reference signal if the information specified that the memory device output the timing reference signal. The memory controller subsequently samples the data output from the memory device based on information provided by the timing reference signal output from the memory device.

Protocol including selective output by memory of a timing reference signal

An integrated circuit includes a physical layer interface having a control timing domain and a data timing domain, and circuits that enable the control timing domain during a change in power conservation mode in response to a first event, and that enable the data timing domain in response to a second event. The control timing domain can include interface circuits coupled to a command and address path, and the data timing domain can include interface circuits coupled to a data path.

Command-triggered data clock distribution mode

A multi-rank memory system in which calibration operations are performed between a memory controller and one rank of memory while data is transferred between the controller and other ranks of memory. A memory controller performs a calibration operation that calibrates parameters pertaining to transmission of data via a first data bus between the memory controller and a memory device in a first rank of memory. While the controller performs the calibration operation, the controller also transfers data with a memory device in a second rank of memory via a second data bus.

Memory access during memory calibration

Systems and methods are provided for detecting and correcting address errors in a memory system. In the memory system, a memory device generates an error-detection code based on an address transmitted via an address bus and transmits the error-detection code to a memory controller. The memory controller transmits an error indication to the memory device in response to the error-detection code. The error indication causes the memory device to remove the received address and prevent a memory operation.

Memory error detection

Local on-die termination controllers for effecting termination of a high-speed signaling links simultaneously engage on-die termination structures within multiple integrated-circuit memory devices disposed on the same memory module, and/or within the same integrated-circuit package, and coupled to the high-speed signaling link. A termination control bus is coupled to memory devices on a module, and provides for peer-to-peer communication of termination control signals.

On-die termination

A memory controller includes a register to store phase offset value. The phase offset value represents a phase relationship between a memory request signal component and a reference signal. The phase offset value is established through write and read back testing. Transmit circuitry applies the phase offset value in launching the memory request signal component from the IC memory controller to an IC memory device.

Memory controller with staggered request signal output

A memory device includes a set of inputs, and a first register that includes a first register field to store a value for enabling application of one of a plurality of command/address (CA) on-die termination (ODT) impedance values to first inputs that receive the CA signals; and a second register field to store a value for enabling application of one of a plurality of chip select (CS) ODT impedance values to a second input that receives the CS signal. A third register field may store a value for enabling application of a clock (CK) ODT impedance value to third inputs that receive the CK signal.

On-die termination of address and command signals

An expandable memory system that enables a fixed signaling bandwidth to be configurably re-allocated among dedicated memory channels. Memory channels having progressively reduced widths are dedicated to respective memory sockets, thus enabling point-to-point signaling with respect to each memory socket without signal-compromising traversal of unloaded sockets or costly replication of a full-width memory channel for each socket.

Buffer IC with asymmetric memory module interfaces

Row activation operations within a memory component are carried out with respect to subrows instead of complete storage rows to reduce power consumption. Further, instead of activating subrows in response to row commands, subrow activation operations are deferred until receipt of column commands that specify the column operation to be performed and the subrow to be activated.

Deferred fractional memory row activation

A memory module comprises a data interface including a plurality of data lines and a plurality of configurable switches coupled between the data interface and a data path to one or more memories. The effective width of the memory module can be configured by enabling or disabling different subsets of the configurable switches. The configurable switches may be controlled by manual switches, by a buffer on the memory module, by an external memory controller, or by the memories on the memory module.

Folded memory modules

A memory device comprising a programmable command-and-address (CA) interface and/or a programmable data interface is described. In an operational mode, two or more CA interfaces may be active. In another operational mode, at least one, but not all, CA interfaces may be active. In an operational mode, all of the data interfaces may be active. In another operational mode, at least one, but not all, data interfaces may be active. The memory device can include circuitry to select: an operational mode; a sub-mode within an operational mode; one or more CA interfaces as the active CA interface(s); a main CA interface from multiple active CA interfaces; and/or one or more data interfaces as the active data interfaces. The circuitry may perform these selection(s) based on one or more bits in one or more registers and/or one or more signals received on one or more pins.

Memory device comprising programmable command-and-address and/or data interfaces

A system that calibrates timing relationships between signals involved in performing write operations is described. This system includes a memory controller which is coupled to a set of memory chips, wherein each memory chip includes a phase detector configured to calibrate a phase relationship between a data-strobe signal and a clock signal received at the memory chip from the memory controller during a write operation. Furthermore, the memory controller is configured to perform one or more write-read-validate operations to calibrate a clock-cycle relationship between the data-strobe signal and the clock signal, wherein the write-read-validate operations involve varying a delay on the data-strobe signal relative to the clock signal by a multiple of a clock period.

Method and apparatus for calibrating write timing in a memory system

A memory controller includes a clock generator to generate a first clock signal and a timing circuit to generate a second clock signal from the first clock signal. The second clock signal times communications with any of a plurality of memory devices in respective ranks, including a first memory device in a first rank and a second memory device in a second rank. The timing circuit is configured to adjust a phase of the first clock signal, when the memory controller is communicating with the second memory device, based on calibration data associated with the second memory device and timing adjustment data associated with feedback from at least the first memory device.

Clock generation for timing communications with ranks of memory devices

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Ian P Shaeffer