Renesas is the leading dual-port RAM supplier, effectively bringing systems design experience together with high-performance circuit and dual-port SRAM technology expertise to define asynchronous dual-port RAM products.
The Renesas asynchronous dual-port RAM devices are memory devices with non-clocked inputs and outputs for data, address, and control functions. These dual-ported RAMs respond to address and control pin changes without the need for clocks or counters while allowing simultaneous access to a single static SRAM memory location from two buses. Most asynchronous dual-port RAMs also have arbitration logic.
- Dual-port RAM increases bandwidth (~2x SRAM)
- Dual-port RAM reduces design complexity
- Dual-port RAM shortens time-to-market compared to alternative solutions
The Renesas dual-ported RAMs come in 2.5V to 5V I/O voltages, industry-standard packages both Green (6/6 RoHS Compliant) and standard, and commercial, industrial, and military grades. Renesas is continually working to reduce the cost of high-performance SRAM-based dual-port memory solutions. We are and will continue to be the leading provider of dual-port asynchronous memories in the semiconductor industry.
About Dual-Port Memory (Dual-Ported RAM)
Dual-port memory (or dual-ported RAM) is a type of random access memory that supports multiple reads or writes occurring at the same time (or nearly the same time) at different addresses within the memory. The main benefit of this feature is performance since single-port RAM allows only one memory cell to be read/written during each clock cycle, whereas dual-port memory allows for two memory cell accesses per cycle.
From a transistor-level architecture perspective, dual-port memory uses an eight-transistor basic memory cell, whereas single-port RAM uses a six-transistor basic memory cell. While this generally results in a larger die size, the Renesas solutions are optimized and offered in very compact packages.
Key parameters for choosing a dual-ported RAM solution include:
- Core voltage: The supply voltage used to power the dual-port RAM. This is typically defined by the power rails available in the system.
- I/O voltage: The voltage used for the data input and output; for some devices this is separate from the core voltage.
- Bus width: The number of “lanes” used to read and write to the dual-port RAM. Renesas offers all popular configurations.
- Memory density: This is the number of bits the dual-ported RAM will hold in its memory. Renesas offers sizes up to 18Mb.
- Access time: The time it takes to locate a single piece of information and make it available to the computer for processing. Ideally, the access time of the dual-port memory should be fast enough to keep up with the CPU. If not, the CPU will waste a certain number of clock cycles, which makes it slower. Renesas offers access times down to 8 nanoseconds.
