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Old 10-24-2007, 09:15 AM
Antti
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Default Re: Changing refresh rate for DRAM while in operation?

On 24 Okt., 07:50, Peter Alfke <al...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> On Oct 23, 5:27 pm, "David Spencer" <davidmspen...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > <MikeShepherd...@btinternet.com> wrote in message

>
> >news:[email protected]. .

>
> > > Although it's not expressed in DRAM specs and you wouldn't want to
> > > rely on it, the effect of reducing refresh rate is to increase the
> > > access time. I'm not up-to-date with DRAM technology, but my
> > > experience with devices 30 years ago was that you could turn off
> > > refresh (and all other access) for 10s or more without losing the
> > > contents, provided you weren't pushing the device to its access time
> > > limits.

>
> > > So, it's not impossible that reducing refresh rate would have a use
> > > (albeit outside the published device spec). But, as you suggest, it
> > > would help if he would just tell us what he's trying to do.

>
> > > Mike

>
> > Although that may well be the case for asynchronous DRAMs (because the
> > reduced charge in the memory cell capacitor would mean that the sense
> > amplifier took longer to register the state), this would not be the case for
> > SDRAM since this registers the outputs a fixed number of clocks after the
> > access starts. If the underlying access time increased by too much then the
> > data would just be wrong.

>
> For certain addressing patterns, the refresh can be eliminated
> alltogether, when the addressing sequence is such that all (used)
> memory cells are naturally being read, and thus refreshed, within the
> required time.
> Peter Alfke- Zitierten Text ausblenden -
>
> - Zitierten Text anzeigen -


Sinclair ZX?
at least some old Z80 homecomputers used refresh by video scan

Antti




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