Chip RAM

Chip RAM is a commonly used term for the integrated RAM used in Commodore's line of Amiga computers. Chip RAM is shared between the central processing unit (CPU) and the Amiga's dedicated chipset (hence the name). It was also, rather misleadingly, known as "graphics RAM".

Under the Amiga architecture, the direct memory access (DMA) controller is integrated into the Agnus (Alice on AGA models) chip. Both the CPU and other members of the chipset have to arbitrate for access to shared RAM via Agnus. This allows the custom chips to perform video, audio, or other DMA operations independently of the CPU. As the 68000 processor used in early Amiga systems usually only accesses memory on every second memory cycle, Agnus operates a system where the "odd" clock cycle is allocated to time-critical custom chip access and the "even" cycle is allocated to the CPU: thus, for average DMA demand, the CPU is not typically blocked from memory access and may run without interruption. However, certain chipset DMA, such as high-resolution graphics with a larger color palette, Copper, or blitter operations, can use any spare cycles, effectively blocking cycles from the CPU. In such situations CPU cycles are only blocked while accessing shared RAM, but never when accessing Fast (CPU-only) RAM (when present) or ROM.

Most stock Amiga systems were equipped with Chip RAM only and shipped with between 256 kiB and 2 MiB.

The shared RAM data bus is 16-bit on OCS and ECS systems. The later AGA systems use a 32-bit data bus controlled by the Alice coprocessor (replacing Agnus) and 32-bit RAM. The memory clock runs at double the rate on AGA systems. As a result, chipset RAM bandwidth is increased fourfold compared to the earlier 16-bit design. However, 32-bit access is limited to CPU and graphics DMA and cannot be used for other devices. The ECS-based A3000 also has 32-bit Chip RAM, but access is only 32-bit for CPU operations; the chipset remained 16-bit.

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