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

Reliability Concerns Shift Left Into Chip Design


Demand for lower defect rates and higher yields is increasing, in part because chips are now being used for safety- and mission-critical applications, and in part because it's a way of offsetting rising design and manufacturing costs. What's changed is the new emphasis on solving these problems in the initial design. In the past, defectivity and yield were considered problems for the fab. Re... » read more

HBM3: Big Impact On Chip Design


An insatiable demand for bandwidth in everything from high-performance computing to AI training, gaming, and automotive applications is fueling the development of the next generation of high-bandwidth memory. HBM3 will bring a 2X bump in bandwidth and capacity per stack, as well as some other benefits. What was once considered a "slow and wide" memory technology to reduce signal traffic dela... » read more

GDDR6 Memory On The Leading Edge


With the accelerating growth in data traffic, it is unsurprising that the number of hyperscale data centers keeps rocketing skyward. According to analysts at the Synergy Research Group, in nine months (Q2’20 to Q1’21), 84 new hyperscale data centers came online bringing the total worldwide to 625. Hyperscaler capex set a record $150B over the last four quarters eclipsing the $121B spent in ... » read more

Sweeping Changes Ahead For Systems Design


Data centers are undergoing a fundamental change, shifting from standard processing models to more data-centric approaches based upon customized hardware, less movement of data, and more pooling of resources. Driven by a flood of web searches, Bitcoin mining, video streaming, data centers are in a race to provide the most efficient and fastest processing possible. But because there are so ma... » read more

New Uses For AI


AI is being embedded into an increasing number of technologies that are commonly found inside most chips, and initial results show dramatic improvements in both power and performance. Unlike high-profile AI implementations, such as self-driving cars or natural language processing, much of this work flies well under the radar for most people. It generally takes the path of least disruption, b... » read more

An Expanding Application Space For GDDR6 Memory


The origins of graphics double data rate (GDDR) memory can be traced to the rise of 3D gaming on PCs and consoles. The first GPUs used single data rate (SDR) and double data rate (DDR) DRAM, the same memory used for CPU main memory. The quest for higher frame rates at higher resolutions drove the need for a graphics-workload specific memory solution. The commercial success of gaming PCs and con... » 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

Breaking Down The AI Memory Wall


Over the past few decades, the semiconductor industry has witnessed the rapid evolution of memory technology as new memories helped to usher in new usage models that characterized each decade. For example, synchronous memory helped drive the personal computer (PC) revolution in the 1990s, and this was quickly followed by specialized graphics memory (GPUs) for game consoles in the 2000s. When sm... » read more

GDDR Accelerates Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning


The origins of modern graphics double data rate (GDDR) memory can be traced back to GDDR3 SDRAM. Designed by ATI Technologies, GDDR3 made its first appearance in NVidia’s GeForce FX 5700 Ultra card which debuted in 2004. Offering reduced latency and high bandwidth for GPUs, GDDR3 was followed by GDDR4, GDDR5, GDDR5X and the latest generation of GDDR memory, GDDR6. GDDR6 SGRAM supports a ma... » read more

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