How To Match The DDR Memory Power Solution To The Application

Focus:

Powering double data rate (DDR) memory chips requires the generation of two power rail rails—VDDQ and VTT. Suppliers of power management ICs have developed application-specific voltage regulators to generate these rails. Among the different DDR-specific power solutions, there are several different approaches to generating the power rails. In these article, three different approaches are described. A fully integrated approach combines the VDDQ switching regulator and the VTT LDO in one chip. A discrete solution uses separate chips for VDDQ switching regulator and VTT LDO. And a high efficiency approach employs switching regulators for both VDDQ and VTT. These variations enable tradeoffs in board space requirements, design flexibility, efficiency, and cost as discussed here. Specific Texas Instrument voltage regulator devices are cited here as examples. However, similar types of devices are available from other vendors. The article begins with a brief discussion of DDR power requirements.

What you’ll learn:

• How to understand the tradeoffs among different voltage regulator options developed to power DDR memories

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Author & Publication:

Jim Aliberti, Texas Instruments, Dallas, Texas, How2Power Today, Jul 15 2013

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