Asynchronous Operation

An asynchronous interface is one where a minimum period of time is determined to be necessary to ensure an operation is complete. Each of the internal operations of an asynchronous DRAM chip are assigned minimum time values, so that if a clock cycle occurs any time prior to that minimum time another cycle must occur before the next operation is allowed to begin.

It should be fairly obvious that all of these operations require a significant amount of time and creates a major performance concern. The primary focus of DRAM manufacturers has been to either increase the number of bits per access, pipeline the various operations to minimize the time required or eliminate some of the operations for certain types of accesses.

Wider I/O ports would seem to be the simplest and cheapest method of improving performance. Unfortunately, a wider I/O port means additional I/O pins, which in turn means a larger package size. Likewise, the additional segmentation of the array (more I/O lines = more segments) means a larger chip size. Both of these issues mean a greater cost, somewhat defeating the purpose of using DRAM in the first place. Another drawback is that the multiple outputs draw additional current, which creates ringing in the ground circuit. This actually results in a slower part, because the data cannot be read until the signal stabilizes. These problems limited the I/O width to 4 bits for quite some time, causing DRAM designers to look for other ways to optimize performance.