DDR3 Memory

The Micron DDR3 SDRAM is connected exclusively to the 1.5-v I/O on Banks 7A and 8A of the FPGA. The tables below list these connections.

Note that the RZQ pin (location B11) is tied to ground through a 240Ω resistor on the ZEM5310.

The following resources are available to help provide guidance for designs that involve this memory:

Connection Tables

DDR3 PINFPGA PIN
RESETJ19
CKpJ9
CKnH9
CKEF14
CSE9
RASB7
CASB6
WEF7
DQS0pH11
DQS0nG12
DQS1pH14
DQS1nJ13
DM0G11
DM1J17
ODTL8
DDR3 PINFPGA PIN
A0L7
A1K7
A2H8
A3G8
A4J7
A5J8
A6A10
A7A9
A8A8
A9A7
A10C6
A11D6
A12D7
A13C8
A14G6
A15H6
BA0A5
BA1B10
BA2C9
DDR3 PINFPGA PIN
D0E12
D1D12
D2C11
D3K9
D4C13
D5D13
D6B12
D7F12
D8F13
D9E14
D10J11
D11A13
D12B15
D13C15
D14G15
D15K16

DDR3 SDRAM Controller Settings

Cyclone V devices support external, high-performance memory through the use of the DDR3 SDRAM Controller with UniPHY provided by Altera. This provides a custom memory controller using the hard memory controller IP present on the Cyclone V devices. These parameters have been used successfully within Opal Kelly but your design needs may require deviations.

Parameters in Bold are those that need to be changed from the default.

All settings are based on Quartus Prime 15.1.

Screenshots of the process are available in the ZEM5305 DDR3 Memory Walkthrough.

PHY Settings

SECTION PARAMETER ZEM5310
  Enable Hard External Memory Interface Enabled
General Settings Speed Grade 8
Clocks  Memory Clock Frequency 333.3333 MHz
PLL Reference Clock Frequency 100.0 MHz
Rate on Avalon-MM interface Full
Enable AFI Half Rate Clock Disabled
Advanced PHY Settings Supply Voltage 1.5V DDR3
PLL Sharing Mode No Sharing
DLL Sharing Mode No Sharing
OCT Sharing Mode No Sharing

Memory Parameters

Select the MICRON MT41K256M16HA-125 memory device preset and click “Apply”. This applies all memory parameters correctly with the following exceptions:

SECTION PARAMETER ZEM5310
  Total Interface Width 16
Memory Initialization Options Output Drive Strength Setting RZQ/6
ODT Rtt Nominal Value RZQ/6
Auto Selfrefresh Method Automatic

Memory Timing

These parameters are set after applying the preset for the Micron memory device above.

Board Settings

The default settings in this tab should be appropriate for the ZEM5310.

Controller Settings

SECTION PARAMETER ZEM5310
Avalon Interface Generate power-of-2 data bus widths for Qsys or SOPC Builder Disabled
Generate SOPC Builder Compatible Resets Disabled
Maximum Avalon-MM Burst Length 128
Enable Avalon-MM Byte-enable Signal Enabled
Low Power Mode All Options Disabled
Efficiency Enable User Auto-Refresh Controls Disabled
Enable Auto-Precharge Control Disabled
Local-to-Memory Address Mapping CHIP-ROW-BANK-COL
Enable Reordering Enabled
Starvation Limit for Each Command 10 commands
Configuration, Status and Error Handling All Options Disabled
Multiple Port Front End Export Bonding Interface Disabled
Expand Avalon-MM Data for ECC Disabled
Number of Ports 1
Port 0 Type Bidirectional
Width 128
Priority 1
Weight 0

Diagnostics

SECTION PARAMETER ZEM5310
Simulation Options Auto-calibration mode Skip calibration
Skip Memory Initialization Delays Enabled
Enable Verbose Memory Model Output Enabled
Enable Support for Nios II ModelSim Flow in Eclipse Disabled
Debugging Options All Options Default
Efficiency Monitor and Protocol Checker Settings All Options Default

DDR3 SDRAM Pin Assignments

After generating the DDR3 controller using the settings above, a set of pin assignments will be created for the memory interface. To apply these settings to a design you must first synthesize the design. Then, from the TCL Scripts tool found in the Quartus Tools menu select the ddr3_interface_p0_pin_assignments.tcl script and select Run. This should apply all required constraints to the design.