Battery powered I.mx6, which DDR for low power best performance.

[richardjjones]

I'm going to be developing a custom i.mx6 board for a battery powered video camera compressing 1080p24 or 30. I want the lowest power for maximum battery life, so with DDR to go with?

DDR3: no doubt the highest device performance (lowest latency) but most thirsty, readiy available.

LPDDR2: looks like the lowest power, also available but does it have a greater latency. Does the 2ch 64 bit nature help or just level the playing field?

LPDDR3, uDDR3: also 1.2v, is it supported and how would it compare if it were available (still looks rather rare unless you're making 100K+ units, we're not).

DDR3L looks just like lower voltage DDR3 without the added low power features of LPDDRx.

I'm also rather short of PCB space. In real world applications,  does dropping to a 16-bit DDR interface cripple the system. My code no doubt fits in cache, video frames in DDR. My gut feeling is go with LPDDR3 /uDDR3 32-bit single chip if I can source them, alse DDRL with a 32 bit bus but if 16 bit works almost as well I'd re-think it.

Any guidance most welcome.

[Yuri]

Hello,

  Strictly speaking, i.MX6 does not support LPDDR3; it does support LPDDR2.

There are some considerations, where LPDDR2 and LPDDR3 are compared, and

it looks as possible to use LPDDR3 instead of LPDDR2, but we never tested such

possibility for i.MX6, and cannot guarantee it.

TN-52-02: Point-to-Point System Design: Layout and Routing Tips for LPDDR2 and LPDDR3 Devices 

  So, LPDDR2 may be recommended for lowest power consumption applications for i.MX6.

Have a great day,
Yuri

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