Experimental investigation of Scalability of DDR DRAM packages

A two-facet approach was used to investigate the parametric performance of functional high-speed DDR3 (Double Data Rate) DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) die placed in different types of BGA (Ball Grid Array) packages: wire-bonded BGA (FBGA, Fine Ball Grid Array), flip-chip (FCBGA) and lead-bonded microBGA®. In the first section, packaged live DDR3 die were tested using automatic test equipment using high-resolution shmoo plots. It was found that the best timing and voltage margin was obtained using the lead-bonded microBGA, followed by the wire-bonded FBGA with the FCBGA exhibiting the worst performance of the three types tested. In particular the flip-chip packaged devices exhibited reduced operating voltage margin. In the second part of this work a test system was designed and constructed to mimic the electrical environment of the data bus in a PC’s CPU-Memory subsystem that used a single DIMM (Dual In Line Memory Module) socket in point-to-point and point-to-two-point configurations. The emulation system was used to examine signal integrity for system-level operation at speeds in excess of 6 Gb/pin/sec in order to assess the frequency extensibility of the signal-carrying path of the microBGA considered for future high-speed DRAM packaging. The analyzed signal path was driven from either end of the data bus by a GaAs laser driver capable of operation beyond 10 GHz. Eye diagrams were measured using a high speed sampling oscilloscope with a pulse generator providing a pseudo-random bit sequence stimulus for the laser drivers. The memory controller was emulated using a circuit implemented on a BGA interposer employing the laser driver while the active DRAM was modeled using the same type of laser driver mounted to the DIMM module. A custom silicon loading die was designed and fabricated and placed into the microBGA packages that were attached to an instrumented DIMM module. It was found that 6.6 Gb/sec/pin operation appears feasible in both point to point and point to two point configurations when the input capacitance is limited to 2pF.