Over the past decade, rising clock speeds and advances in processor design such as superscalar processing and simultaneous multithreading have led to dramatic increases in CPU performance. Over the same time period memory performance has increased more slowly, with increases coming more from advances in manufacturing rather than from revolutionary architectural improvements. Consequently, the processor-memory performance gap has grown wider. If these trends continue, the performance of future computing platforms will be constrained more and more by the performance of their memory systems.
This talk will describe the Direct Rambus DRAM (Direct RDRAM), a novel architecture designed to help reduce the processor-memory performance gap. The Direct RDRAM was designed to meet the needs of several computing environments, including home entertainment units, desktop personal computers, laptops, and workstations/servers. Some of the important design considerations for these computing environments will be discussed, along with how they ultimately manifested themselves in the Direct RDRAM architecture. A discussion of the performance advantages of systems that utilize Direct RDRAMs compared to systems that use other commercially-available alternatives will be included.
About the speaker:
Steven Woo is a Member of the Technical Staff in the Logical Architecture Group of Rambus Inc., a company that designs, develops, and licenses its high-speed chip-to-chip interface technology to enhance the performance and cost-effectiveness of computing systems. Since joining Rambus Inc. in 1996, he has been a member of the Direct RDRAM team focusing on the development of detailed event-driven simulators and performance analysis. Prior to joining Rambus, he worked in the Neural Network Technology Center at Hughes Aircraft Company, Ground Systems Group. He received BS Engineering (1986) and Master of Engineering (1988) degrees from Harvey Mudd College, and MS (1991) and PhD (1996) degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Contact information:
Steven Woo
2465 Latham Street
Mountain View, CA 94040
650-944-7710
650-944-8080
swoo@rambus.com