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Yes, designing ram is a lower level operation as compared to designing logic via an HDL and needs to directly take the process (chemistry, optics, mechanics) of the fab into account.

https://openram.soe.ucsc.edu/



DRAM chips are fascinating.

Instead of going with the much more expensive SRAM, someone decided that refreshing billions of capacitors hundreds of times a second while performing read and write operations is an acceptable way of storing data (even if only while powered).

I wonder what the managers who first heard the idea must've thought :D

And it works so well! It's probably one of the most reliable component in a computer.


Many of the early RAM systems were non-persistent (mercury delay lines, phosphor) and some were destructive-read (core memory).

Appears to have been invented by Dennard of Dennard Scaling: https://www.thoughtco.com/who-invented-the-intel-1103-dram-c...




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