Choosing the right synchronous SRAM for your application

Jayasree Nayar, Cypress Semiconductor
EETimes (3/5/2012 5:27 PM EST)

The choice of the right synchronous static random access memory (SRAM) is crucial for networking applications that have increased bandwidth requirements for better system performance. System designers need to be aware of the features and advantages of different synchronous SRAMs technologies to make the right memory selection for their application.

Some of the critical factors that determine the right synchronous SRAM choice are density, latency, speed, read/write ratio, and power. By understanding how these factors impact performance, reliability, and cost, designers can select the optimal synchronous SRAM for their application.

Synchronous SRAM is available in a variety of forms with different performance characteristics and benefits (see figure 1). Standard synchronous SRAM is commonly used in industrial electronics, instrumentation, and military applications. The devices are often used as data buffers (temporary storage) and can be accessed randomly through their high speed, single data rate (SDR) interfaces. Standard synchronous burst SRAMs are ideal for dominated read or write operations. Customers have a choice between flow-through (FT) or pipelined (PL) architectures with user selectable linear and interleaved burst modes, as well as single-cycle deselect (SCD) and double-cycle deselect (DCD) options.

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