External Memory Interface Handbook Volume 2: Design Guidelines: For UniPHY-based Device Families

ID 683385
Date 3/06/2023
Public
Document Table of Contents

3.2.8. Clock Group Signals

Depending on the specific form factor, DDR2 SDRAM DIMMs have two or three differential clock pairs, to ensure that the loading on the clock signals is not excessive. The clock signals are always terminated on the DIMMs and hence no termination is required on your PCB.

Additionally, each DIMM slot is required to have its own dedicated set of clock signals. Hence clock signals are always point-to-point from the FPGA PHY to each individual DIMM slot. Individual memory clock signals should never be shared between two DIMM slots.

A typical two slot DDR2 DIMM design therefore has six differential memory clock pairs—three to the first DIMM and three to the second DIMM. All six memory clock pairs must be delay matched to each other to ±25 mils (±0.635 mm) and ±10 mils (±0.254 mm) for each CLK to CLK# signal.

You may place a compensation capacitor between each clock pair directly before the DIMM connector, to improve the clock slew rates. As FPGA devices have fully programmable drive strength and slew rate options, this capacitor is usually not required for FPGA design. However, Intel advises that you simulate your specific implementation to ascertain if this capacitor is required or not. If fitted the best value is typically 5 pF.