Compute Express Link (CXL): All You Need To Know


An in-depth look at Compute Express Link  (CXL) 2.0, an open standard cache-coherent interconnect between processors and accelerators, smart NICs, and memory devices. We explore how CXL is helping data centers more efficiently handle the yottabytes of data generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications. We discuss how CXL technology maintains memory c... » read more

Research Bits: July 18


CXL memory disaggregation Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) developed a Compute Express Link (CXL) solution for directly accessible, high-performance memory disaggregation that they say significantly improves performance compared to existing remote direct memory access (RDMA)-based memory disaggregation. RDMA enables a host to directly access an... » read more

What Future Processors Will Look Like


Mark Papermaster, CTO at AMD, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about architectural changes that are required as the benefits of scaling decrease, including chiplets, new standards for heterogeneous integration, and different types of memory. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: What does a processor look like in five years? Is it a bunch of chips in a package? I... » read more

Standardizing Chiplet Interconnects


The chip industry is making progress on standardizing the infrastructure for chiplets, setting the stage for faster and more predictable integration of different functions and features from different vendors. The ability to choose from a menu of small, highly specialized chips, and to mix and match them for specific applications and use cases, has been on the horizon for more than a decade. ... » read more

DRAM Choices Becoming Central Design Considerations


Chipmakers are paying much closer attention to various DRAM options as they grapple with what goes on-chip or into a package, elevating attached memory to a critical design element that can affect system performance, power, and cost. These are increasingly important issues to sort through with a number of tradeoffs, but the general consensus is that to reach the higher levels of performance ... » read more

Rambus To Buy Hardent


Rambus inked a deal to buy Hardent, an engineering services company, in order to accelerate Rambus' push into the CXL arena. Compute Express Link (CXL), developed primarily by Intel before being turned into an open industry standard, allows memory to be disaggregated within a data center and shared across multiple servers. This, in turn, lets data centers control how critical resources are a... » read more

Interop Shift Left: Using Pre-Silicon Simulation for Emerging Standards


By Martin James, Gary Dick, and Arif Khan, Cadence with Suhas Pai and Brian Rea, Intel The Compute Express Link™ (CXL™) 2.0 specification, released in 2020, accompanies the latest PCI Express (PCIe) 5.0 specification to provide a path to high-bandwidth, cache-coherent, low-latency transport for many high-bandwidth applications such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, ... » read more

Choosing The Right Server Interface Architectures For High Performance Computing


The largest bulk and cost of a modern high-performance computing (HPC) installation involves the acquisition or provisioning of many identical systems, interconnected by one or more networks, typically Ethernet and/or InfiniBand. Most HPC experts know that there are many choices between different server manufacturers and the options of form factor, CPU, RAM configuration, out of band management... » read more

Improving Memory Efficiency And Performance


This is the second of two parts on CXL vs. OMI. Part one can be found here. Memory pooling and sharing are gaining traction as ways of optimizing existing resources to handle increasing data volumes. Using these approaches, memory can be accessed by a number of different machines or processing elements on an as-needed basis. Two protocols, CXL and OMI, are being leveraged to simplify thes... » read more

CXL and OMI: Competing or Complementary?


System designers are looking at any ideas they can find to increase memory bandwidth and capacity, focusing on everything from improvements in memory to new types of memory. But higher-level architectural changes can help to fulfill both needs, even as memory types are abstracted away from CPUs. Two new protocols are helping to make this possible, CXL and OMI. But there is a looming question... » read more

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