MAX10 supported DDR3 topology

[lutzek]

Hello,

I am working on my first implementation of DDR3 memory with MAX10 FPGA. My initial direction was to follow MAX10 FPGA Development Kit with 10M50DAF484C8G on board. The main difference is - I would like to use only one DDR3 memory chip - IS43TR16640C-125JBLI - the never revision of the one used on the kit.  

BUT.

In "Intel® MAX® 10 External Memory Interface User Guide" there is following information:

4.3.1. Intel MAX 10 Supported DDR2 or DDR3 Topology
For DDR2 or DDR3/DDR3L, the external memory interface IP for Intel MAX 10 devices
uses two capture clocks with two discrete devices.

Figure 13. Supported Topology for DDR2 or DDR3 Memory Interfaces
This figure shows the supported DDR2/DDR3 topology. One clock captures the lower 16 bit of data and the other clock captures the top 8 bit of data. The memory interface IP in Intel MAX 10 devices generates DDR2 or DDR3/DDR3L IPs targeted for this configuration only.

Do I understand it correctly that it is not possible to use MAX 10 FPGA with single 16 bit DDR memory and If i want to use DDR3 I need to have second 8-bit part, even if my design requires 16 bits only?

Thank you for support

[AdzimZM_Intel]

Hello,

Do I understand it correctly that it is not possible to use MAX 10 FPGA with single 16 bit DDR memory and If i want to use DDR3 I need to have second 8-bit part, even if my design requires 16 bits only?

• Yes, you need to create external memory interfaces to 16-bit SDRAM components with 8-bits error correction coding (ECC).

Regards,

Adzim

[lutzek]

Hello Adzim, 

Thank you for your reply. Does it mean that if I do not plan to use ECC I can use only 16-bit DDR3? The Table 3 "Supported Maximum External Memory Interface Width in Intel MAX 10 Device Packages" shows that device I am using (F484 package) can work with DDR3 "with or without" ECC.

I know that not using ECC sounds weird, but I in fact I need 12 bits out of this 16-bit message, so I have 4 bits left for error correction.

[AdzimZM_Intel · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Yes you can.

The ECC bit is only set to 8-bit. So you cannot use 4-bit as ECC.

Regards,

Adzim

[AdzimZM_Intel]

I’m glad that your question has been addressed, I now transition this thread to community support. If you have a new question, feel free to open a new thread to get the support from Intel experts. Otherwise, the community users will continue to help you on this thread. Thank you.