The Virtex-4 features, such as the programmable IDELAY and built-in FIFO support, simplifythe bridging of a high-speed, PCI-X core to large amounts of DDR-SDRAM memory. Onechallenge is meeting the PCI-X target initial latency specification. PCI-X Protocol Addendum tothe PCI Local Bus Specification Revision 2.0a ([Ref 6]) dictates that when a target signals adata transfer, "the target must do so within 16 clocks of the assertion of FRAME#." PCItermination transactions, such as Split Response/Complete, are commonly used to meet thelatency specifications. This method adds complexity to the design, as well as additional systemlatency. Another solution is to increase the ratio of the memory frequency to the PCI-X busfrequency. However, this solution increases the required power and clock resource usage.
