Torry Steed, Sr. Product Marketing Manager at SMART Modular, provides an overview of CXL PCIe Add-in Cards (AICs) and memory modules that can be used to expand capacity in servers or in external memory pooling systems.
2. Company Confidential
SMART Introduction
2
Intelligent Platform
Solutions (IPS)
Memory Solutions
LED Solutions
$3.62
FY 2022 Non-GAAP
EPS
SGH
NASDAQ
1988
Year Founded
~3000
Employee count
2,154
Patents &
Applications
$1.8B
FY 2022 Revenue
3. Company Confidential
CXL® is a New Set of Protocols for PCIe
CPU CPU CPU
Accelerator Accelerator
Memory
Expander
CXL.io
CXL.cache
CXL.io
CXL.mem
DDR
DDR
DDR
DDR
DDR
DDR
DDR
DDR
DDR
HBM
HBM
DDR
DDR
CXL.io
CXL.cache
CXL.mem
CACHE CACHE
Type 1 Device
(no memory)
Type 2 Device Type 3 Device
Memory Expansion
CXL is PCIe for DRAM
4. Company Confidential
CXL Memory Expansion Advantages
Increased Capacity
• DRAM capacity is limited by the CPU to DIMM interface (too many pins)
• The number of DIMM sockets per CPU is limited
• Multiple DIMMs/Channel will be difficult if not impossible with DDR5-
6400 and beyond
Reduced Memory Cost
• DRAM cost increases dramatically when using 3DS (TSV) components
• Once you have consumed the available DIMM sockets, increasing
memory using CXL is actually a cost savings vs. increasing DIMM
density.
Increased Performance
• DRAM bandwidth may be limited by the number of memory channels
available to the CPU
• Beyond ~50% load, memory queuing becomes a significant bottleneck
5. Company Confidential
High DRAM Applications and Use Cases
Artificial Intelligence
• Natural language processing (LLMs)
• Image recognition
• Autonomous vehicles
Large scale in-memory databases
• SAP HANA
• MemSQL or Microsoft SQL
• Real time analytics
Video Processing
• Security Camera data processing
• 3D Rendering
• Gaming
• Retail theft prevention
Biotech
• DNA Sequencing
• High Resolution Medical Image
Processing (MRI)
Fintech
• High transaction counts
• Real time, high-speed analytics
• Algorithmic trading
6. Company Confidential
CXL® Memory Adoption
Server Rack
CXL
CXL Memory
CXL
Switch
Storage
Storage
Server Rack
Direct Attached CXL Expansion CXL Memory Pooling/Sharing
…
…
CPU
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
CPU
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
CXL CXL
CXL
AIC
CPU
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
CPU
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
CXL CXL
CXL
AIC
CPU
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
CPU
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
CXL CXL
CXL
AIC
CPU
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
CPU
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
CXL CXL
CXL
AIC
CPU
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
CPU
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
CXL CXL
CXL
AIC
CPU
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
CPU
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
DRAM
CXL CXL
CXL
AIC