Intel® IXP42X Product Line of Network Processors and IXC1100 Control Plane Processor
September 2006 DM
Order Number: 252480-006US 279
SDRAM Controller—Intel® IXP42X product line and IXC1100 control plane processors
After decoding is complete, the SDRAM Controller completes the read or write
transaction to the SDRAM.
Byte and half-word transfers are implemented by controlling the DQM pins of the
SDRAM. The SDRAM Controller performs byte lane steering for write operations to the
SDRAM. Read operations performed by the SDRAM Controller to the SDRAM do not
support byte-lane steering. Read operations performed by the SDRAM Controller to the
SDRAM must be 32-bits. If sub-word accesses are requested a full 32-bits will be
returned.
7.1 SDRAM Memory Space
The SDRAM memory space is defined with the base address beginning at hexadecimal
0x00000000 and ending at hexadecimal 0x3FFFFFFF.
The SDRAM memory space overlaps the expansion bus memory space during the boot
sequence. Once the boot sequence has started, a configuration register — located in
the expansion bus configuration space — must be written to remove the expansion bus
mapping from the SDRAM space. Therefore enabling the SDRAM memory space to start
in hexadecimal location 0x000000000.
The mapping of the SDRAM and Expansion Bus is described in detail in Section 8.9.9,
“Configuration Register 0” on page 322.
During a read or write access, only one chip-select pin — SDR_CS_N (SDRAM Chip
Select) — will be active at a time.
7.2 Initializing the SDRAM Controller
In order to use the SDRAM interface, the device must be configured properly. There are
three configuration registers used to initialize the SDRAM Controller. Before using the
SDRAM Controller, the SDRAM Configuration (SDR_CONFIG) Register must be
initialized.
The SDRAM Configuration (SDR_CONFIG) Register will provide the CAS to data delay
parameter and the external Memory Configuration. Bit 3 of the SDRAM Configuration
(SDR_CONFIG) Register is used to specify the CAS to data delay. After reset, the CAS-
Table 106. Memory Space
SDRAM Tech. SDRAM Type # Chips Address Size Total Mem. Size
Row Column
64 Mbit 2 M x32 1 11 8 8 Mbyte
2 11 8 16 Mbyte
64 Mbit 4 M x16 2 12 8 16 Mbyte
4 12 8 32 Mbyte
128 Mbit 8 M x16 2 12 9 32 Mbyte
4 12 9 64 Mbyte
256 Mbit 16 M x16 2 13 9 64 Mbyte
4 13 9 128 Mbyte
512 Mbit 32 M x16 2 13 10 128 Mbyte
4 13 10 256 Mbyte