Western Digital has invested in the developer of the “processor in memory”

Western Digital has invested in the developer of the “processor in memory”

Huge inertia classic microprocessor architectures are not allows you to quickly bring to market something truly new, although the new is long overdue. The volume of processed data increased so that the separate location of the memory subsystems has become a so-called problem of the “wall of memory”. The data transfer from the CPU to memory and back is to eat enough resources to designers have started to think about a new architecture for microprocessors and memory. Industry leaders began to create their own projects: Micron proposed Automata Processor (CPU machines), HP is working on a project Machine, Toshiba creates a CPU with cache memory STT MRAM, has its own projects at Intel and IBM. And, of course, your way looking for a variety of startups. Some are hopeless.

In the composition of the memory modules may have its own processor for data processing (SAS Upmem)

Thus, in 2015 the company Upmem SAS (Grenoble, France) have proposed a processor architecture memory (processor-in-memory, PIM). It’s a RISC CPU, received the name DPU (DRAM processing units). Structurally, the CPU DPU “smeared” on the memory array or, in other words, it is integrated into the memory array. This allows you to work on the data without sending them through the controller to the outside. Data is processed in the same store. It is argued that without increasing the consumption of the architecture of the company Upmem will increase the calculation performance 10 to 25 times.

The company Upmem SAS held the first round of placement of large block of shares (series A). In the course of the round, the company raised 3 million euros. Investors were made by venture company C4 Ventures, Partech Ventures, Supernova Invest and financial… division of Western Digital Capital. No further details and until they are needed. Of interest to Western Digital to develop clear without much thought. With the purchase of SanDisk it became a manufacturer of flash memory and non-volatile memory of the just is regarded as preferable for architectures like Upmem PIM. Current flash NAND is not well suited for these architectures, but it is not a problem. The assets of Western Digital, there are developments and work continues on the memory type ReRAM and other promising types of nonvolatile memory.

Slide from the presentation on Western Digital FMS

In recognition Upmem, one of the partners of the company is highly praised architecture of the processor-in-memory. Unfortunately, the company did not elaborate on if you’re talking about emulation or FPGA. Collected in a series A investment will help the developers to implement this architecture in silicon and to create the necessary software tools to advance solutions to the masses.

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