Phoebe 2100: Main Memory

Phoebe has been provided with two 172 pin Dual in-line Memory Module (DIMM) sockets.
These are intended to take Synchronous DRAM (SDRAM); the system is likely to be supplied with one 32Mbyte module.
Despite SDRAMs being essentially 64 bit wide devices, the data bus is 32 bits wide. In the current ARM range, only the SA-1500 has a 64 bit data bus.
The SDRAM interface is provided by the IOMD2, as the SA-110 does not have the necessary control circuitry itself.
With two sockets, the theoretical memory limit is 512Mbytes. However, there are currently no 256Mbyte DIMMS on the market, so the practical limit is 256Mbytes using two 128Mbyte devices.
Synchronous DRAM is clocked like the processor, allowing faster sequential data transfers. For example, a sequential write to a Fast page mode DRAM (FPDRAM) - as used in the RiscPC - would take 5 clock cycles. The same write to a SDRAM would take 2 clock cycles.
The processor bus speed in Phoebe has been increased to 64MHz, from 16MHz in the old machines.