WHAT IS SDRAM?
SDRAM is another of those powerful acronyms that describes a lot more than it sounds like it does. The letters stand for Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory, and it is a fast method of delivering computing capacity. SDRAM can run at 133 Mhz, which is much faster than earlier RAM technologies. SDRAM is very protective of its data bits, storing them each in a separate capacitor. The benefit of this is the avoidance of corruption and the maintenance of “pristine” data. The drawback is that those same capacitors that are so useful at storing the SDRAM bits also happen to be very bad at keeping electrons in check; the result is where the Dynamic part of the name comes in, as refreshes are required to maintain data integrity. Once all of that dynamic refreshing and storing are done with, the result is a dense package of data, one of the densest in the business world. We add the Synchronous part with a subroutine that lines itself up with the computer system bus and processor, so that al
Stands for “Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory.” Yeah, it’s a mouthful, but if you memorize it, you can really impress your friends. SDRAM is an improvement to standard DRAM in that it retrieves data alternately between two sets of memory. This eliminates the delay caused when one bank of addresses is shut down while another is prepared for reading. It’s called “Synchronous” DRAM because the memory is synchronized with the clock speed that the computer’s CPU bus speed is optimized for. The faster the bus speed, the faster the SDRAM can be. SDRAM speed is measured in Megahertz, which makes it easy to compare the the processor’s bus speed to the speed of the memory.
