MEMORY AND STORAGE

OVERVIEW

Memory Hierarchy
RAM
Memory Chip Organization
ROM
Flash Memory
 MEMORY HIERARCHY

Increasing performance
and
increasing cost

Slow and
inexpensive
MEMORY HIERARCHY (CONTD)

Registers
top in the hierarchy
matched in speed to the CPU
but are large and consume significant power
number of registers in a processor are small

Secondary and off-line storage devices

at the bottom of the hierarchy
cost per stored bit small in terms of money and power
but access time is very long compared to
registers
 RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY(RAM)

The term “random” means any memory location can be accessed in the
same amount of time regardless of its position in the memory.
Volatile memory
Types of RAM:
SRAM
DRAM
 STATIC RAM

Static RAM (SRAM) based on flip flops

Contents of each location persist as long as power is applied.
Fast but relatively large
Consume a lot of power
Used for memory applications that are small but fast
 DYNAMIC RAM

Dynamic RAM (DRAM) employ capacitors

Capacitor stores electric charge whose level represents a 1 or 0
Capacitors dissipate with time and hence the charge must be restored
frequently
DRAMs
smaller, slower than SRAMs
support low cost, low power and high density and hence used in main
memory
MEMORY CHIP ORGANIZATION
 RAM CHIP

A0 – Am-1 : Address lines from 0 to m-1

CS : Chip Select (CS = 0, chip selected)
WR : ReadWrite (WR = 0, write operation)
RAM GRID
 RAM GRID
During read operation:
Entire row is selected
It is fed into the column MUX
MUX selects a single bit for output
During write operation:
Single bit to be written is distributed by the DEMUX to the target column
Row decoder selects the proper column to be written
 READ ONLY MEMORY(ROM)

Data stored in these chips is nonvolatile -- it is not lost when power is

turned off.
On turn on, the computer loads BIOS from ROM
Data stored in these chips is either unchangeable or requires a special
operation to change
Applications: Videogames, calculators, microwave oven, etc
READ ONLY MEMORY(ROM) (CONTD)

Lets see the circuit for a ROM that stores four four-bit words(0101,
1011, 1110, 0000)
PROM burner allows contents of the ROM to be overwritten only once
EPROMs – could be written several times
EEPROMs – allow the content to be rewritten electrically
 FLASH MEMORY
A section of memory cells can be erased in a single step, or 'flash', thus
the name
Nonvolatile memory
Flash memory is used for easy and fast information storage in such
devices as digital cameras, mobile, video game consoles
 REFERENCES

Textbook: Computer Organization and Architecture

Wiki pages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_storage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_random_access_memory
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/computer-memory1.htm
THANK YOU