Renesas Electronics Corporation, a provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, has released the third-generation DDR5 registered clock driver (RCD) and first-generation client clock driver (CKD) for emerging DDR5 DRAM servers and client systems.
With these new driver ICs, Renesas continues to be the only supplier to offer a complete portfolio of DDR5 memory interfaces for dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs), motherboards and embedded applications.
DDR5 RCD and DDR5 CKD ICs enable next generation DIMMs with speeds of up to 6,400 and 7,200 megatransfers per second (MT/s), respectively, an increase from current transfer speeds of 5,600 MT/s.
Renesas DDR5 Gen 3 RCD is designed for Registered DIMMs (RDIMMs). CKD supports speeds of up to 7,200 MT/s and is the industry's first to interface with small size DIMMs (SODIMMs), unbuffered DIMMs (UDIMMs), high-performance gaming DIMMs, and memory applications for client platforms.
“As an industry-leading provider of memory interface products, Renesas continues to make notable contributions to pushing the memory ecosystem to new frontiers of performance and power,” said Balaji Kanigicherla, corporate vice president and division general manager. of advanced mixed-signal and ASIC solutions. at Renesas. “By playing an integral role in defining and implementing DDR5 interface specifications, Renesas continues to be an important partner for the world's leading SOC and DRAM players for DIMM and system-level creation.”
The RCD driver buffers the command address (CA) bus, chip and clock selections between the host controller and DRAM modules, and creates a BCOM bus to control the LRDIMM data buffer. New driver enhances Decision Feedback Equalizer (DFE) support, increasing DFE taps from four to six to improve receiver headroom, while I2C and I3C sideband bus support provides direct access control contact of the registry.
CKD buffers the clock between the host controller and DRAM, which is a new requirement for DDR5 DIMMs operating at speeds up to 7,200 MT/s for client DIMMs and memory-starved applications.
The new clock driver supports I2C and I3C sideband access to enable asynchronous control and provides access to internal control words for configuring device capabilities and adapting to different SODIMM and UDIMM configurations and memory-starved system applications.
“Intel Xeon-based platforms are designed to support memory-intensive uses such as predictive analytics that use deep learning and machine learning. RCD Gen 3 is an important milestone for the memory industry, helping to meet the bandwidth and scalability needs of our data center customers,” said Dr. Dimitrios Ziakas, Vice President of Memory and IO Technologies from Intel. “The Customer Clock Driver is a new industry initiative to further enhance the Customer DIMM. Renesas and Intel have collaborated with the industry to help ensure the specification and implementation of the Gen 3 RCD and customer clock driver to meet market needs.”
