Microsoft joins Hybrid Memory Cube consortium

James Delahunty
9 May 2012 14:01

Microsoft becomes seventh core member.
Hybrid Memory Cube is a revolutionary innovation in DRAM memory architecture that sets a new standard for memory performance. To help develop the new technology, Micron and Samsung lead a consortium of industry players for research and development.
Microsoft has become the seventh core member of the consortium. "The Cube represents a major step forward in the direction of increasing memory bandwidth and performance, while decreasing the energy and latency for moving data between the memory arrays and the processor cores," said KD Hallman, general manager of Microsoft?s strategic software/silicon architectures group.
The consortium lists some potential benefits from Hybrid Memory Cube usage, such as..

• HMC Combines high-speed logic process technology with a stack of through-silicon-via (TSV) bonded memory die.
• HMC delivers dramatic improvements in performance, breaking through the memory wall and enabling dramatic performance and bandwidth improvements - a single HMC can provide more than 15x the performance of a DDR3 module.
• The revolutionary architecture of HMC is exponentially more efficient than current memory, utilizing 70% less energy per bit than DDR3 DRAM technologies..
• Hybrid Memory Cube's increased density per bit and reduced form factor contribute to lower total cost of ownership, by allowing more memory into each machine and using nearly 90% less space than today's RDIMMs.

Hybrid Memory Cube represents the key to extending network system performance to push through the challenges of new 100G and 400G infrastructure growth. Eventually, HMC will drive exascale CPU system performance growth for next generation HPC systems.