Author: Jim Handy

UPMEM Releases Processor-In-Memory Benchmark Results

Chip layout of Micron's Automata ProcessorOn January 22 Processor-In-Memory (PIM) maker UPMEM announced what the company claims are: “The first silicon-based PIM benchmarks.”  These benchmarks indicate that a Xeon server that has been equipped with UPMEM’s PIM DIMM can perform eleven times as many five-word string searches through 128GB of DRAM in a given amount of time as the Xeon processor can perform on its own.  The company tells us that this provides significant energy savings: the server consumes only one sixth the energy of a standard system.  By using algorithms that have been optimized for parallel processing UPMEM claims to be able to process these searches up to 35 times as quickly as a conventional system.

Furthermore, the same system with an UPMEM PIM is said to Continue reading “UPMEM Releases Processor-In-Memory Benchmark Results”

University of Lancaster Invents Yet Another Memory

The Memory Guy recently encountered some stories in the press about “UltraRAM” which is the name for a new type of NVRAM developed by researchers at Lancaster University in the UK.  These researchers published one paper last June in Nature:  Room-temperature Operation of Low-voltage, Non-volatile, Compound-semiconductor Memory Cells, and another just this month in the IEEE’s Transactions on Electron Devices: Simulations of Ultralow-Power Nonvolatile Cells for Random-Access Memory.

According to the papers, the new Continue reading “University of Lancaster Invents Yet Another Memory”

Observations on the “Universal Law” for NV Memory Cells

Photo of Ron Neale, Renowned Phase-Change Memory ExpertRon Neale returns to The Memory Guy blog to discuss a “Universal Law” about memory elements and selectors that was presented by CEA Leti at the IEEE’s 2019 IEDM conference last December.

At IEDM 2019 D. Alfaro Robayo et al presented a paper titled: Reliability and Variability of 1S1R OxRAM-OTS for High Density Crossbar Integration that had a rather interesting claim of a “Universal Law”.  It is possible that some links to the past might help to provide an explanation for Continue reading “Observations on the “Universal Law” for NV Memory Cells”

Micron Debuts 16Gb 1Znm DDR5 DRAM Chip

Micron 1Znm LP-DDR4 DRAMAt CES last week Micron Technology introduced a new DRAM.  The company’s second 1Znm production part, this 16Gb chip is an early supporter of the new DDR5 interface, opening the door to higher speeds and lower power consumption.

The company’s first 1Znm DRAM is the LPDDR4 part pictured on the left, which started Continue reading “Micron Debuts 16Gb 1Znm DDR5 DRAM Chip”

Kioxia Fire. Not Again!

Toshiba's Fab 5 in YokkaichiKioxia (formerly Toshiba Memory) has announced another setback to its production: there was a fire on January 7 in the Fab 6 facility of its main Yokkaichi campus.

According to a customer letter that was published by TechNews the fire was limited to a single tool and was rapidly extinguished.  Although the news story is in Chinese, a picture of the letter is included, and that letter is in English.

Kioxia seems to be Continue reading “Kioxia Fire. Not Again!”

NV Memory Selectors: Forming the Known Unknowns (Part 5)

Phto of Ron Neale, Renowned Phase-Change Memory ExpertIn this final part of a five-part series, contributor Ron Neale continues his analysis of selector technologies focusing on the nature of the mystery of Forming and a number of the many unanswered questions.

Any search for Forming-Free structures might find some help in the article by Antonin Verdy of Leti titled: Optimized Reading Window for Crossbar Arrays Thanks to Ge-Se-Sb-N-based OTS Selectors.  This article also Continue reading “NV Memory Selectors: Forming the Known Unknowns (Part 5)”

DRAM Prices Hit Historic Low

Red line showing weekly DRAM prices over the course of 2019, where they have fallen from $6.10 to $2.59Everyone knows that DRAM prices have been in a  collapse since early this year, but last week DRAM prices hit a historic low point on the spot market.  Based on data the Memory Guy collected from spot-price source InSpectrum, the lowest spot price per gigabyte for branded DRAM reached $2.59 last week.  This is lower than the prior low of $2.62 last July, which equaled an earlier $2.62 record set in June, 2016.  See the  figure Continue reading “DRAM Prices Hit Historic Low”

NV Memory Selectors: Forming the Known Unknowns (Part 4)

Ron NealeIn this fourth part of a five-part series, contributor Ron Neale continues his analysis of selector technologies, focusing on the nature of the mystery of Forming and a number of the many unanswered questions.

From the discussion and investigations outlined in the earlier parts of this series, there would appear to be a number of options to explain selector Forming, where on the first switching event the threshold switching voltage Continue reading “NV Memory Selectors: Forming the Known Unknowns (Part 4)”

Hprobe’s Vote for MRAM

Hprobe Perpendicular Magnetic Field UnitHprobe: a test equipment manufacturer based in Grenoble France, has cast its vote for MRAM to succeed in the emerging memory battle.  It has created a piece of production test equipment dedicated to MRAM technology.

The company has developed a new perpendicular magnetic generator module that allows Continue reading “Hprobe’s Vote for MRAM”

Podcast: Storage Developer Conference 2018 – Emerging Memories

SDC 2018 LogoAlmost one year ago Tom Coughlin and The Memory Guy presented the findings of our first emerging memories report at the Storage Networking Industry Association’s (SNIA) Storage Developers Conference (SDC).  The podcast of this presentation has just been made available on the SNIA website.

In the podcast, titled “The Long and Winding Road to Persistent Memories,” Tom and I reviewed leading emerging memory technologies as we had surveyed them for our report.

This is a highly visual presentation, so I would recommend following along with the slides, which can also be downloaded from the SNIA SDC website at HERE.  That same page combines the slides and the podcast into a video, so if you’re able to, it might be  a good idea to watch the video.  If you’re driving as your listening to it, though, then please use the podcast instead!

In the time since that podcast was recorded Tom and I have updated the report to a 2019 edition, which can be Continue reading “Podcast: Storage Developer Conference 2018 – Emerging Memories”