Signal Integrity Analysis and Optimization of DDR Interconnect Design

Increasingly demanding on memory performance, capacity, and data rate has complicated a PCB layout design work significantly nowadays. As a result, signal integrity and timing analysis of a memory interface are considered as must-have requirements. In order to significantly reduce hardware bring-up time period and verification tooling costs, optimizing a memory interface has become extremely essential. This paper carries out a comprehensive study and analysis on a DDR interconnect design, therefore providing multiple design rules to achieve optimized signal integrity performances. As a case study, an 1866 MT/s data link between a DDR3 IC and an FPGA has been analyzed and optimized. Simulation results were presented to show the best achievable signal integrity performances under various optimized design parameters.