Скачать или смотреть NXP Tech Days 2022, Detroit - DDR Tool Presentation

Processors need RAM to run large applications - like an operating system with networking communication stacks or complex applications which offer for example users a display to interact with.

In this example NXP S32G family of Vehicle Network Processors needs the DDR - in this case DDR4 or LPDDR4 - as very fast external memory where the code and data resides for the gateway applications it supports - like communication with cloud for example to offload/download data collected by the car.

S32G processors are very powerful but for the system overall to be performant the communication with DDR must be:
FAST - timings to control its communication and behavior range in the nanoseconds space
POWER EFFICIENT - as cars run or will run on batteries this translates in many switches of various unused segment of the DDR between sleep and on modes
RELIABLE - not a single bit has to go wrong during maybe years of continuous functioning because that bit can disrupt an instruction in the code for example and damage the application behavior
CAPABLE TO WORK IN VARIOUS ENVIROMENTS - where temperature might vary dramatically between plus and minus or where other external noises are possible

The mentioned above points are just the most common requirements but behind them there are multiple constrains and details to be taken into account. For this reason configuring DDR is a challenging task. To help our customers get started, configure, calibrate and test their setups we have developed DDR Tool which is covering all NXP parts that have DDR. There are specific aspects from processor to processor, like the boot sequence or the core that is actually controlling the initialization of the DDR but overall the same tool with different instances for each processor is used.

Radu will talk in details in a 2 hour session at NXP Tech Days, Detroit about all these aspects. This video is a quick spoiler we made on the corridor of NXP Austin site as we happen to be there. I love the red lines behind us - all the corridors in this large site in Austin are covered in this tapestry - as each red line represents a patent that NXP has created. Really humbling and in the same time inspiring to walk on those corridors and we wanted on purpose to catch that in the video.

There is an annoying sound in the background coming from air-conditioning blowing into our mic which I hope you can ignore as I am not yet skillful enough to remove it :)

Enjoy!