Date: Sat, 3 Sep 2005 00:17:50 +0100 (BST)
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Most, if not all, of the single-bit-wide DRAM
chips (4164, 41256, etc)
had separate DIN and DOUT pins. They were not dual-ported, though, you
only had one address bus for both reading and writing.
Thank you. I have since noted this on X 1 DRAM datasheets. I had
never noticed that before.
You could link these pins together externally, or
you could use them
separately. IIRC on the IBM PC, the DIN and DOUT pins are linked on the
RAMs storing data bits, but wired separately on the RAMs storting the
parity bits.
What is the point in using them separately? Was it for the case
where the destination of a read is different from the source of a
write? I could see where that could happen in parity checking.
YEs, that was the idea. It's no use if you want to link the data pins to
a bidirectional bus. I've seen DRAM boards with separate input and output
buffers, converting the bidirectioanl off-board bus into seprate input
and output buses to the DRAM chips themselves. It's also useful when
you're using the DRAMa in a video display circuit and want to feed the
DOUT lines to the shift register.
I suspect the _real_ reason for it was that there was a spare pin on the
package and it didn't ever make life more difficult to have separate DIN
and DOUT pins (oyu could just strap them together externally if you
wanted a bidirectional data pin).
-tony