An FPGA RAM Demo Circuit.
This circuit example adds 4K of static RAM to our FPGA Prototype board.  When this RAM is addresses (currently at 8000H-8FFFH) in the S100 bus the S100 Bus Phantom line will be assessed thereby inactivating any other RAM in the system at that location.  Note no hardware changes are made to the FPGA board itself. All the circuits reside within the FPGA chip.

Introduction.
Most recent FPGA chips have the capability to be programmed to contain static RAM. The Cyclone IV can contain up to 4K of static RAM (8 bits wide).   If you look at the Quartus IP window you will see that Intel supplies a few different types of static RAM already packaged for us.
  
  
We will use the simplest type here, RAM with a single access buffer.  Clicking on it brings up a 5 step dialog box.  Interestingly,  you will see that the RAM can be up to 256 bits wide. We will use 8 here. Also the amount of RAM can be up to 16K -- though I'm not sure of these parameters for the Cyclone IV.
A detailed description of all the FPGA Cyclone RAM (and ROM) options is described in this Intel document.

Writing to, or reading from, this On Chip RAM is very simple -- along the lines you would layout a "real" RAM board circuit.  Again for speed and simplicity we will use the Quartus .bdf file approach.  So when you are setting up the RAM parameters in the above dialog box at the last step, you save the file as a .bdf file.  Your new RAM dialog will then appeared as an option in the Symbol/Project dialog on the toolbar.  I named it ON_CHIP_RAM2 in this example

Here is the core of the FPGA circuit:-
              
The two key signals coming into the RAM circuit are WRITE_RAM_DATA and READ_RAM_DATA.   Again a very simple circuit.  When the equivalent of the 74LS684 sees an address range between 8000H and 8FFFH it goes low. Any Memory write will raise the WRITE_RAM_DATA signal.  A similar circuit is used for READ_RAM_DATA.

The data is only written to, or read from the RAM, when these signals are high. Any other address line changes are ignored.   The above Intel IP Library actually latches the data with a  Low to High clock signal.  pSYNC (inverted) seems to work file for RAM reads.  I could not get a common S100 bus signal to work for inclock.  Fortunately it does not seem to be critical,  any fast clock seems to do. I used the 50mHz FPGA clock.

A few things of note in the circuit:
1.   You will see i am reading and writing to the S100 bus data in and out lines directly.  The is no need for an extra layer of buffers.  Of course the FPGA pins are not directly connected to the S100 bus, the still go through the level shifters/drivers U3+U8 and U4+U9.  Thus we need  F_DATA_LOW_OE-, F_DATA_LOW_DIRECTION etc..
 
2.   Since most systems these days will have 64K of static RAM you don't want a memory conflict.  The S100 bus has a special line "Phantom" (Pin 67) which if low  can inactivate a RAM board in the system.  Be sure to jumper P4 3-4 with a short wire bridge.  We use the FPGA pin F_S100_PHANTOM to do this in our circuit. When low, the only active RAM is from the FPGA board.

3.  You will notice that the WRITE_RAM_DATA signal requires the dip switch SW1 to be high to be active.  If it is low the ON_CHIP_RAM2 circuit behaves as a ROM.  In other words you can read the data but not (over) write it. 

Testing.
The easiest test of RAM like this is to move your Z80 monitor at F000H-FFFFH to 8000H and jump to 8000H. 

MF000,FFFF,8000
G8000

The Master Z80 monitor (at 10Mhz) should still sign on and run.
If you do a "A" command you should see RAM from 0H to EFFFH.  If you set the dip switch low you should see "P's" at 8000H to 8FFFH, but the monitor should still run.
Here are two pictures:-
      
If this works you have a solid and reliable RAM window on your FPAG prototype board. 


RAM_DEMO.ZIP
RAM_ROM_INFO.PDF

This page was last modified on 05/11/2019