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

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

Changing Server Architectures In The Data Center


Data centers are undergoing a fundamental shift to boost server utilization and improve efficiency, optimizing architectures so available compute resources can be leveraged wherever they are needed. Traditionally, data centers were built with racks of servers, each server providing computing, memory, interconnect, and possibly acceleration resources. But when a server is selected, some of th... » read more

What Designers Need to Know About Error Correction Code (ECC) In DDR Memories


As with any electronic system, errors in the memory subsystem are possible due to design failures/defects or electrical noise in any one of the components. These errors are classified as either hard-errors (caused by design failures) or soft-errors (caused by system noise or memory array bit flips due to alpha particles, etc.). To handle these memory errors during runtime, the memory subsyst... » read more

Productivity Keeping Pace With Complexity


Designs have become larger and more complex and yet design time has shortened, but team sizes remain essentially flat. Does this show that productivity is keeping pace with complexity for everyone? The answer appears to be yes, at least for now, for a multitude of reasons. More design and IP reuse is using more and larger IP blocks and subsystems. In addition, the tools are improving, and mo... » read more

Memory Access In AI Systems


Memory access is a key consideration in AI system design. Ron Lowman, strategic marketing manager for IP at Synopsys, talks about how memory affects overall power consumption, why partitioning of on-chip and off-chip is so critical to performance and power, and how this changes from the cloud to the edge. » read more

Essential DDR5 Features Designers Must Know


JEDEC has defined and developed three DDR standards – standard DDR, mobile DDR, and graphic DDR – to help designers meet their memory requirements. DDR5 will support a higher data rate (up to 6400 Mb/s) at a lower I/O Voltage (1.1V) and a higher density (based on 16Gb DRAM dies) than DDR4. DDR5 DRAMs and dual-inline memory modules (DIMMs) are expected to hit the market in 2020. This article... » read more

High-Speed SerDes At 7/5nm


Manmeet Walia, senior product marketing manager at Synopsys, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about how to optimize PHYs for integration on all four corners of an SoC, as well as the PPA implications of moving large amounts of data across and around a chip. » read more

What Is DRAM’s Future?


Memory — and DRAM in particular — has moved into the spotlight as it finds itself in the critical path to greater system performance. This isn't the first time DRAM has been the center of attention involving performance. The problem is that not everything progresses at the same rate, creating serial bottlenecks in everything from processor performance to transistor design, and even the t... » read more

HBM Issues In AI Systems


All systems face limitations, and as one limitation is removed, another is revealed that had remained hidden. It is highly likely that this game of Whac-A-Mole will play out in AI systems that employ high-bandwidth memory (HBM). Most systems are limited by memory bandwidth. Compute systems in general have maintained an increase in memory interface performance that barely matches the gains in... » read more

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