Super-Cooled DRAM for Big Power Savings

Frozen DRAM - Hacker10Recently Rambus announced that it was using cryogenic temperatures to boost computer performance in large datacenters.  This research is being done in a joint project with Microsoft who is developing a processor based on Josephson Junctions.

This is an effort to provide a performance increases greater than can be attained through standard semiconductor scaling.  The research project aims to attain improvements in cycle time, power consumption, and compute density, leading to better energy efficiency and cost of ownership (COO).  The companies hope to gain side benefits of being able to squeeze more bits onto a DRAM chip thus reducing cost per bit, improving performance, and making DRAM chips less costly to produce.

The system these two companies are researching uses a memory system that is cooled to 77 degrees Kelvin (77°K) with a processor that operates at 4°K.  To do this the memory system is bathed in liquid nitrogen while the processor is cooled by liquid helium.  The temperatures are the boiling points of these two liquids.

Surprisingly, the fact that these two subsystems are in different Continue reading “Super-Cooled DRAM for Big Power Savings”

Rambus and Micron Sign License Agreement

The following is excerpted from an Objective Analysis Alert that can be downloaded from the company’s website.

Micron Licenses Rambus IPRambus and Micron announced on Tuesday that they have signed a patent cross license agreement.  Micron receives rights to Rambus IC patents, including memories.  Both Micron and Elpida products will be covered.  The companies have thus settled all outstanding patent and antitrust claims in their 13-year court battle.

Micron will make royalty payments to Rambus of up to $10 million per quarter over the next seven years, totaling $280 million, after which Micron will receive a perpetual, paid-up license.

Rambus and Micron both have Continue reading “Rambus and Micron Sign License Agreement”

Rambus Acquires Unity Semiconductor

Unity SemiconductorRambus announced that the company has acquired privately-held Unity Semiconductor, an alternative memory technology company for $35 million. Unity employees have joined Rambus and will continue to develop  next-generation nonvolatile memory.

Unity has an interesting technology that has caught the eye of some leading memory firms, including Micron, who had an exclusive right to Unity’s technology.  The company’s CMOx is based on oxygen ions moving within a semiconducting material.  It’s one species of resistive RAM.

Although Unity has been trying for years to manufacture very high density nonvolatile memory chips, The Memory Guy is not aware that the company has yet produced the chips they have set out to make.

Continue reading “Rambus Acquires Unity Semiconductor”

A Change to Computing Architecture?

Venray's TOMI Die LayoutI got a phone call yesterday from Russell Fish of Venray Technology. He wanted to talk about how and why computer architecture is destined for a change.

I will disclose right up front that he and I were college classmates.  Even so, I will do my best to give the unbiased viewpoint that my clients expect of me.

Russell is tormented by an affliction that troubles many of us in technology: We see the direction that technology is headed, then we consider what makes sense, and we can’t tolerate any conflicts between the two.

In Russell’s case, the problem is the memory/processor speed bottleneck.

Continue reading “A Change to Computing Architecture?”