7.2.1 DDR3 General Board Layout Guidelines
To help ensure good signaling performance, consider the following board design guidelines:
- Avoid crossing splits in the power plane.
- Minimize Vref noise.
- Use the widest trace that is practical between decoupling capacitors and memory module.
- Maintain a single reference.
- Minimize ISI by keeping impedances matched.
- Minimize crosstalk by isolating sensitive bits, such as strobes, and avoiding return path discontinuities.
- Use proper low-pass filtering on the Vref pins.
- Keep the stub length as short as possible.
- Add additional spacing for on-clock and strobe nets to eliminate crosstalk.
- Maintain a common ground reference for all bypass and decoupling capacitors.
- Take into account the differences in propagation delays between microstrip and stripline nets when evaluating timing constraints.