Methods and apparatus for variable length SDRAM transfers

1. Field of the Invention Disclosed is a SDRAM system including a SDRAM having multiple banks of memory, a plurality of bank state machines associated the multiple banks of memory of the SDRAM, and a data control state machine. The data state machine is responsive to a memory request for a variable length data transfer with the SDRAM and as well as the bank state machines. The data control state machine determines the current state of a first bank of memory of the SDRAM. The current state may be either a read in progress, a write in progress, or idle. The data control state machine then handles the memory request with a different bank of memory RAM depending upon the current state of the first bank of memory.