SRAM In AI: The Future Of Memory


Experts at the Table — Part 1: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to talk about AI and the latest issues in SRAM with Tony Chan Carusone, CTO at Alphawave Semi; Steve Roddy, chief marketing officer at Quadric; and Jongsin Yun, memory technologist at Siemens EDA. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. Part two of this conversation can be found here and part three is here. [L-R]: ... » read more

CXL: The Future Of Memory Interconnect?


Momentum for sharing memory resources between processor cores is growing inside of data centers, where the explosion in data is driving the need to be able to scale memory up and down in a way that roughly mirrors how processors are used today. A year after the CXL Consortium and JEDEC signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to formalize collaboration between the two organizations, suppor... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


By Liz Allan, Jesse Allen, and Karen Heyman Global semiconductor equipment billings dipped 2% year-over-year to US$25.8 billion in Q2, and slipped 4% compared with Q1, according to SEMI. Similarly, the top 10 semiconductor foundries reported a 1.1% quarterly-over-quarter revenue decline in Q2. A rebound is anticipated in Q3, according to TrendForce. Synopsys extended its AI-driven EDA ... » read more

CXL’s Protection Mechanisms And How They Handle Real-World Security Problems


A technical paper titled “How Flexible is CXL's Memory Protection?: Replacing a sledgehammer with a scalpel” was published by researchers at University of Cambridge. Abstract: "CXL, a new interconnect standard for cache-coherent memory sharing, is becoming a reality - but its security leaves something to be desired. Decentralized capabilities are flexible and resilient against malicious a... » read more

DRAM Translation Layer, Mechanism for Flexible Address Mapping and Data Migration Within CXL-Based Memory Devices


A technical paper titled “DRAM Translation Layer: Software-Transparent DRAM Power Savings for Disaggregated Memory” was published by researchers at Seoul National University. Abstract: "Memory disaggregation is a promising solution to scale memory capacity and bandwidth shared by multiple server nodes in a flexible and cost-effective manner. DRAM power consumption, which is reported to be... » read more

IP Becoming More Complex, More Costly


Success in the semiconductor intellectual property (IP) market requires more than a good bit of RTL. New advances mandate a complete design, implementation, and verification team, which limits the number of companies competing in this market. What constitutes an IP block has changed significantly since the concept was first introduced in the 1990s. What was initially just a piece of RTL (reg... » read more

Memory Disaggregation Research And Making It Practical With Hardware Trends (U. of Michigan)


A new technical paper titled "Memory Disaggregation: Advances and Open Challenges" was published by researchers at University of Michigan. Abstract "Compute and memory are tightly coupled within each server in traditional datacenters. Large-scale datacenter operators have identified this coupling as a root cause behind fleet-wide resource underutilization and increasing Total Cost of Owners... » read more

Server Design With Pin-Efficient CXL Interface (Georgia Tech)


A new technical paper titled "A Case for CXL-Centric Server Processors" was written by researchers at Georgia Tech. Abstract: "The memory system is a major performance determinant for server processors. Ever-growing core counts and datasets demand higher bandwidth and capacity as well as lower latency from the memory system. To keep up with growing demands, DDR--the dominant processor inter... » read more

How The Doubling Of Interconnect Bandwidth With PCI Express 6.0 Impacts IP Electrical Validation


As a result of the innovations taking place in CPUs, GPUs, accelerators, and switches, the interface in hyperscale datacenters now requires faster data transfers both between compute and memory and onto the network. PCI Express (PCIe) provides the backbone for these interconnects and is used to build protocols such as Computer Express Link (CXL) and Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe... » read more

CXL Memory: Detailed Characterization Analysis Using Micro-Benchmarks And Real Applications (UIUC, Intel Labs)


A new technical paper titled "Demystifying CXL Memory with Genuine CXL-Ready Systems and Devices" was published by researchers at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and Intel Labs. Abstract: "The high demand for memory capacity in modern datacenters has led to multiple lines of innovation in memory expansion and disaggregation. One such effort is Compute eXpress Link (CXL)-based... » read more

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