Driving The Need For Innovative Memory Solutions

Driving The Need For Innovative Memory Solutions Dr. Ronald D. Black President & CEO 3 February 2014

Quote When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact. Warren Buffet 2 2014 Rambus Inc.

Outline Megatrends driving technology Memory challenges The power problem The scaling problem Memory opportunities Implications for India 3 2014 Rambus Inc.

Driving Factors for Future Systems Mobile Increased battery life Reduced weight HD image and video capture Improved graphics Higher resolution displays Faster time-to-market Cloud Faster response times Reduced power consumption Increased storage Reduced system cost Lower total cost of ownership Memory is a key enabler for Mobile and Cloud systems, markets are large enough to support optimized DRAM and memory system architectures for each 4 2014 Rambus Inc.

Pervasive Connectivity and The Internet of Things The continued proliferation of power-efficient mobile technologies, cloud computing, and pervasive connectivity will drive an increasingly connected world fostering The Internet of Things Tremendous growth in the volume and movement of data continuing to drive innovation in memory and storage architectures 5 2014 Rambus Inc.

Challenge #1: Power

The Power Problem Power and cooling becoming large cost for big datacenters 7 2014 Rambus Inc.

The Power Problem The Role of Memory Networking 5% Server Power Trend Other (server) 22% Disks 10% DRAM 30% CPUs 33% Power Breakdown Newer Systems à Peak power in Google Datacenters 2007 Memory power growing as an overall percentage Ref: L. Barosa, et. al. (Google) The Datacenter as a Computer, 2007 Ref: J. Yoon, et. al. (IBM) Flash Memory Summit 2013 8 2014 Rambus Inc.

Memory Power Active vs. Idle 3-6Gbps @2mW/Gb Memory Controller 8ns Instant On manages idle power without performance penalty One rank (max) actively reading/writing Active Power Several idle ranks with open pages Active Idle Power Several idle ranks with no open pages Precharge Idle Power 0 mw Typical server ~ 25% active memory power vs. 75% idle memory power* Refresh current ~1/3 of the idle current * based on Rambus measurements and various industry publications 9 2014 Rambus Inc.

Challenge #2: Scaling (Costs)

DRAM Scaling DRAM capacitor no longer scaling Capacitor insulator at physical limit Limits of 3D capacitor structure reached DRAM cost reduction will slow Ref: S.Y. Cha (Hynix) - IEDM Short Course 2011 11 2014 Rambus Inc.

DRAM Cost Implications NAND roadmap has clear path for continued cost reduction; DRAM roadmap unclear expect DRAM costs to plateau Source: DRAM Exchange/IDC/ASML 12 2014 Rambus Inc.

The Industry is Evolving Consolidation DRAM investment shifting to Flash Emerging memories set to fill cost/performance gap 13 2014 Rambus Inc.

Industry Shifting Investment to Flash DRAM Flash Seeing reduced investment in DRAM and increased in Flash Most growth potential and clearer scaling roadmap Source: Micron (Analyst day presentation), 9 th Aug 2013 14 2014 Rambus Inc.

Emerging Memories Can Fill the Gap Non-volatile, fast access time, close to historical memory cost PCM STT-MRAM RRAM GST Electrode I Storage layer (CoFeB) Tunnel barrier (MgO) AICu TiN TiN SiO 2 Reference layer (CoFeB) Inter-layer (Ru) Pinned layer (CoFe) Ti AFM layer (PtMn) HfO 2 Electrode TiN 15 2014 Rambus Inc.

Cost/Performance Gap DRAM and Flash L1/Reg SRAM L2/L3 Main Memory DRAM NVM SSD / Flash HDD Archive: Optical, Tape Capacity 16 2014 Rambus Inc.

Addressing the Challenges

Novel Memory Architectures Emerging Opportunities for new memory and storage solutions to improve power/performance Memory Systems Intelligent DIMMs to extend the life of standards-based memory R+ Enhanced Standards Memory devices and controllers with improved power / performance New Memory Bit cell technology and memory hierarchy Memory Appliances Rethinking the boundaries between processor, controller, and memory 18 2014 Rambus Inc.

Why It Can Work Now Segmentation opens up new business opportunities Flash will be the low cost memory, but has performance issues Emerging memories will fill cost/performance gap between DRAM and Flash Customers need specialized memory architectures that address the new problems of the mobile/cloud India, with engineering and development expertise, is well positioned to address challenges 19 2014 Rambus Inc.

Last Words Memory Matters (Again) 20 2014 Rambus Inc.

Thank You