Double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory(DDR3) has become one of the most mainstream applications in current server and computer systems.In order to quickly set up a system-level signal integrity(SI) simulation flow for the DDR3 interface,two system-level SI simulation methodologies,which are board-level S-parameter extraction in the frequency-domain and system-level simulation assumptions in the time domain,are introduced in this paper.By comparing the flow of Speed2000 and PowerSI/Hspice,PowerSI is chosen for the printed circuit board(PCB) board-level S-parameter extraction,while Tektronix oscilloscope(TDS7404) is used for the DDR3 waveform measurement.The lab measurement shows good agreement between simulation and measurement.The study shows that the combination of PowerSI and Hspice is recommended for quick system-level DDR3 SI simulation.
Abstract---Double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory (DDR3) has become one of the most mainstream applications in current server and computer systems. In order to quickly set up a system-level signal integrity (SI) simulation flow for the DDR3 interface, two system-level SI simulation methodologies, which are board-level S-parameter extraction in the frequency-domain and system-level simulation assumptions in the time domain, are introduced in this paper. By comparing the flow of Speed2000 and PowerSI/Hspice, PowerSI is chosen for the printed circuit board (PCB) board-level S-parameter extraction, while Tektronix oscilloscope (TDS7404) is used for the DDR3 waveform measurement. The lab measurement shows good agreement between simulation and measurement. The study shows that the combination of PowerSI and Hspice is recommended for quick system-level DDR3 SI simulation.