Cypress Semiconductor, the Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) provider, has announced that the latest Quartus II software v14.1 from Altera Corporation supports designs with Cypress’s QDR-IV SRAMs and Altera’s Arria 10 FPGAs. The release supports simulation, compilation and timing for designs with Cypress’s QDR-IV SRAMs, which are the market’s highest performance, standardised networking memory solution. The software support enables customers to design in a QDR-IV SRAM at its fastest clock speeds and achieve the high Random Transaction Rate (RTR) required to achieve 100-400 Gigabit line card rates.
RTR, the number of fully random memory accesses per second, is the critical memory performance metric for increased line card and switching rates. The bottleneck for reaching increased line card rates is the processing of look-up tables, statistics and state counters stored in memory, as well as scheduling functions. QDR-IV devices deliver the RTR required to support these functions, enabling higher bandwidth and higher quality video streams. Cypress’s QDR-IV SRAM is capable of operating in burst-of-two (High Performance) or banked burst-of-two (Xtreme Performance) modes, delivering the fastest clock speeds and highest RTR of all QDR SRAMs. Using Altera’s Quartus II software v14.1, the banked burst-of-two mode can be operated at a maximum frequency of 1,066 MHz with an RTR of 2,132 million transactions per second (MT/s), while the standard burst-of-two mode can be operated at a maximum frequency of 667 MHz and an RTR of 1,334 MT/s.
“QDR-IV memories provide the high bandwidth necessary for emerging telecommunications and data center networking applications that require 400 Gbps,” said Argy Krikelis, strategic marketing architect, Altera. “Working closely with Cypress has enabled Altera to support customers to build systems that will use QDR-IV SRAM memories together with our Arria 10 FPGAs and SoCs to meet next-generation system requirements.”
“With Altera’s latest Quartus II software release, our customers can quickly and efficiently design next-generation networking systems with Cypress QDR-IV SRAMs and their Arria 10 FPGAs,” said Oliver Pohland, business unit director for Synchronous SRAMs at Cypress. “Our QDR-IV SRAMs set a new benchmark for RTR performance, opening the door for 100-400 Gigabit line card rates for routers and switches.”
Cypress offers QDR-IV SRAMs in 144- and 72-Mb densities. The 144-Mb CY7C41xxKV and 72-Mb CY7C40xxKV QDR-IV SRAMs are shipping in production quantities today and are available in a 361-ball Flip Chip Ball Grid Array (FCBGA) package.
QDR-IV was developed in the QDR consortium, whose members jointly define SRAM standards to enable multiple sources and supply stability.
