The Designer’s Dilemma
“We want unlimited, ultra-fast memory for free!” - Richard Kirk
There are 3 main desirable properties for memory:
- large capacity
- fast access times (read/write)
- low cost
These are at odds with each other.
Memory Hierarchy
DRAM (Dynamic RAM)
Fundamental element is a memory cell.
The memory cell stores the data as charge in the storage capacitor.