VaWiRAM: a variable width random access memory module

In this paper, we present the design of a variable width RAM (VaWiRAM) which will be extremely useful in building exible memory systems. Principles of dynamic reconngurability of programmable logic and programmable interconnect is incorporated into random access memories to achieve this exibility. The chip can be reconngured by setting a few conngura-tion pins on the memory chip. A VaWiRAM reconng-urable between widths 1 and W max can be constructed with the extra cost of W max ? 1 pass gates, W max 2 2-to-1 multiplexers, and dlog 2 log 2 (k) + 1]e mode pins. The paper discusses the architecture of the proposed VaWiRAMs, and analyzes the trade-oos in their design .