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Ram

Uploaded by

john
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© © All Rights Reserved
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A Basic Overview of Commonly

Encountered types of Random Access


Memory (RAM) ECE332 By: Peter Haugen
Ian Myers Bret Sadler John Whidden Figure
1: Memory Hierarchy (Simoncelli 2000)
Basic RAM Overview: RAM (Random Access
Memory) is the hardware location in a
computer where the operating system,
application programs, and data in current
use are kept so that they can be quickly
reached by the computer's processor. RAM
is much faster to read from and write to
than most other kinds of storage in a
computer (the hard disk, floppy disk, and
CD-ROM). However, the data in RAM stays
there only as long as it has power. When
you turn the computer off, RAM loses its
data. When you turn your computer on
again, your operating system and other files
are once again loaded into RAM, usually
from your hard disk. RAM can be compared
to a person's short-term memory and the
hard disk to the long term memory. The
short-term memory focuses on work at
hand, but can only keep so many facts in
view at one time. If short-term memory fills
up, your brain sometimes is able to refresh
it from facts stored in long-term memory. A
computer also works this way. If RAM fills
up, the processor needs to continually go to
the hard disk to overlay old data in RAM
with new, slowing down the computer's
operation. (Giakamozis 1999) Why Random
Access? RAM is called "random access"
because any storage location can be
accessed directly. Originally, the term
distinguished regular core memory from
offline memory, usually on magnetic tape in
which an item of data could only be
accessed by starting from the beginning of
the tape and finding an address
sequentially. Perhaps it should have been
called "non-sequential memory" because
RAM access is hardly random. (Giakamozis
1999) RAM is organized and controlled in a
way that enables data to be stored and
retrieved directly to specific locations. A
term IBM has preferred is direct access
storage or memory. (Giakamozis 1999) Note
that other forms of storage such as the hard
disk and CD-ROM are also accessed directly
(or "randomly") but the term random
access is not applied to these forms of
storage. In addition to hard disk, floppy disk,
and CD-ROM storage, another important
form of storage is read-only memory (ROM),
a more expensive kind of memory that
retains data even when the computer is
turned off. Every computer comes with a
small amount of ROM that holds just
enough programming (BIOS) so that the
operating system can be loaded into RAM
each time the computer is turned on. What
RAM architecture Looks Like In general,
RAM is much like an arrangement of cells in
which each cell can hold a 0 or a 1. Each cell
has a unique address that can be found by
counting across columns and then counting
down by row. To find the contents of a cell,
the RAM controller sends the column/row
address down a very thin electrical line
etched into the chip. There is an address
line for each row and each column in the set
of cells. If data is being read, the bits that
are read flow back on a separate data line.
In describing a RAM chip or module, a
notation such as 256Kx16 means 256
thousand columns of cells standing 16 rows
deep. An 8-megabyte module of dynamic
RAM contains 8 million capacitors and 8
million transistors and the paths that
connect them. In the most common form of
RAM, dynamic RAM, each cell has a charge
or lack of charge held in something similar
to an electrical capacitor. A transistor acts as
a gate in determining whether the value in
the capacitor can be read or written. In
static RAM, instead of a capacitor-held
charge, the transistor itself is a positional
flip/flop switch, with one position meaning
1 and the other position meaning 0.
Externally, RAM is a chip that comes
embedded in a personal computer
motherboard with a variable amount of
additional modules plugged into
motherboard sockets. To add memory to
your computer, you simply add more RAM
modules in a prescribed configuration.
These are single in-line memory modules
(SIMMs) or dual in-line memory modules
(DIMMs). Since DIMMs have a 64-bit pin
connection, they can replace two 36 bit (32-
bits plus 4 parity bits) SIMMs when
synchronous DRAM is used. Laptop and
notebook computers contain smaller 32-bit
DIMMs known as small outline DIMMs (SO
DIMMs).

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