San Francisco, CA - At the Intel Developer Forum in September 2010, a lot of discussion was on the systems around the processor. There were update announcements from Samsung, Rambus, Inphi, Renasas, and the SATA consortium. Samsung, Inphi and Rambus had memory announcements while Renasas and the SATA consortium
Samsung was showing their Green DDR2 and DDR3 memory products. The current generation of these devices going into production are based on a 30nm process and are targeted for 1.3v operation. The application is for 3rd and 4th generation servers that are using multi-core designs and the new high density modules. On the LPDDR2 side, the new 30nm products feature a power performance of 61mW/GBps of throughput for a 4Gb 800Mbps device versus 215mw/GBps for a 2Gb 400Mbps LPDDR1. For the DDR3 products, the 30nm process can deliver 4Gb device at 1.35v for 14w vs 102w for 1Gb 1.8v DDR2 memory built with a 60nm process. This higher density is required for the new memory managers in the multi-core processors which typically use 48Gb for a full server motherboard.
Samsung Green DDR3 30nm
Inphi showed samples of new memories that incorporate their new JEDEC compatible LRDIMM Isolation Memory Buffer (IMB). This controller chip which goes on the DIMM sets a fixed low effective load on the motherboard when it sees the memory module. This allows for multiple ranks of memory chips 2,4, and 8 ranks in place of a single rank. These modules are to be made by several manufacturers including Samsung. These new high rank designs, are interface and socket compatible with DDR3 designs, up to 1600MT/s, and only require a small bios level modification. To simplify designs, the IMB includes its own PLL and differential clock distribution buffers, and integrated skew optimization. Due to the increased density of the resulting DIMMs, the IMB also includes a thermal management function for the chip and the memory elements.
Rambus had a new product overview for thier portable system targeted Mobile XDR memory. Unlike the high performance server class memory, Mobile XDR is optimized for data throughput in the context of low power. The memory format support 4 power modes - Active, idle, power down and deep power down. Additionally, the format operates at only 1.2v and features 200mV P-P differential signaling which results in a 2.2mWGbps power consumption. The architecture of the design however is optimized for video viewing and the portable data traffic (phones, tablets, netbooks) with the bandwidth of 3.2-4.3Gbps per pin or up to 17.2GB/s total device bandwidth. The new memory format in conjunction with the new integrated processors (CPU / GPU / Memory Controller single chip) have re-targeted mobile system design to be centered around memory design in order to reduce system EMI and improve noise immunity.
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Rambus Mobile XDR memory Architecture
Renasys was showing both their industry leading USB3.0 products (former NEC product line) and their digital AV LSI products. The AV feature a low power set of codecs, MPEG decoders for TV and STB applications as also mobile products. The single chip solutions can be used for both playback and DB/DVD recorder products. The USB 3.0 product is a host controller that was shown in both storage products (optical storage, rotating storage and SSDs) as well as capture/transfer products such as still and video cameras. The new interface, which is downward compatible with USB2, provides a high performance 5GB/s data interface for being able to move media files between archived home storage to an appliance (tablet, MID, netbook, notebook) and from a source product (camera, microphone, etc) to the storage node. In 2009 the USB host controller was demonstrated with just control boards. The 2010 demo showed the intergration in several products which are appearing in the storage sector this holiday season.
The SATA I/O group gave quick technical snapshot of the recently released v3.1 of the data spec. the 6Gb/s interface has several new forms. There is a full PCIe interface that support the drives. Targeting the SSD and enterprise class storage needs the using 15K rotation speed drives which can support the 6Gb/s data xfer. 7200RPM drives top out at 2.49Gb/s, and as a result the data spec automatically steps down to 3.0Gb/s and 1.5Gb/s as needed. One of the biggest features of the new v3.1 spec is the slimline 7mm connector (mSATA) for the form factor of choice for tablets and netbooks. The mSATA connector supports 3.0Gb/s and 1.5Gb/s xfer rates. Version 3.2 of the spec targted for late 2011 will include a provision for ESATA3 The group wanted to re-emphasize that the SATA3 format is not a competitor to the USB 3.0 5Gb/s transfer protocol. The target applications are completely different in that the SATA spec is targeted to internal and bus/backplane based sustained data transfer, such as would be used for primary storage on computing modes for live storage and servers. The USB spec is targeted towards short duty cycle, batch mode data transfer of generally “completed” data that has to move place to place.
The peripheral side of the compute environment - memory and storage is migrating to both higher data bandwidths and lower power along with the processors. The fundamental architecture of these subsystems is changing to address video as the primary media and the primary data being moved around. This shift is causing the memory and storage systems to adapt accordingly.
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