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US 8,712,249 B2Granted
Optical interconnect in high-speed memory systems
AssigneeMicron Technology, Inc.
InventorsRussel J. Baker, Brent Keeth
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A optical link for achieving electrical isolation between a controller and a memory device is disclosed. The optical link increases the noise immunity of electrical interconnections, and allows the memory device to be placed a greater distance from the processor than is conventional without power-consuming I/O buffers.
Claims21
A memory system comprising:
- a memory controller;
- a transmitter to convert communications from the memory controller and to transmit wave division multiplexed optical signals via a bi-directional optical link to a memory storage device, the memory storage device comprising a wave division demultiplexer coupled to the bi-directional optical link to receive and demultiplex the wave division multiplexed optical signals;
- and
- a receiver to convert the demultiplexed wave division multiplexed optical signals to electrical signals;
- wherein said memory controller, memory storage device, and bi-directional optical link are all integrated on the same die.
2 more elements
A semiconductor die stack comprising:
- a memory controller die;
- a memory die stacked on top of the memory controller die, the memory controller die comprising a transmitter to convert communications from the memory controller die and to transmit a wave division multiplexed optical signal via a bi-directional optical link to the memory die;
- wherein the memory die comprises a wave division demultiplexer coupled to the bi-directional optical link to receive and demultiplex the wave division multiplexed optical signals and a receiver to convert the demultiplexed wave division multiplexed optical signals to electrical signals, and
- wherein said transmitter and said wave division demultiplexer are arranged and configured to convert signal data that includes at least one selected from the group of clock signal data and control data.
1 more element
A method of operating a memory system comprising:
- transmitting wave division multiplexed optical signals via a bi-directional optical link to a memory storage device, the wave division multiplexed optical signals representing electrical signals output from a memory controller, wherein said wave division multiplexed optical signals represent at least one selected from the group of read, write and clock data;
- receiving and demultiplexing the wave division multiplexed optical signals from the bi-directional optical link;
- communicating the demultiplexed wave division multiplexed optical signals to the memory storage device;
- and
- transmitting electrical signals from the memory controller to the memory storage device on an electrical bus, wherein the electrical signals represent at least one selected from the group of command and address data.
2 more elements
A memory system comprising:
- a memory controller;
- a transmitter to convert communications from the memory controller to optical signals, to multiplex the optical signals in a multiplexer and to transmit the multiplexed optical signals via the bi-directional optical link to at least one memory storage device;
- a receiver coupled to the bi-directional optical link to receive the multiplexed optical signals and demultiplex the multiplexed optical signals in a demultiplexer,
- wherein the multiplexer and demultiplexer are integrated on the same chip.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.