Publications

The potential and perils of multi-level memory

Jayaraj, Jagan J.; Rodrigues, Arun; Hammond, Simon D.; Voskuilen, Gwendolyn R.

The future of memory systems isMulti-LevelMemory (MLM). In a MLM system the main memory is comprised of two or more types of memory instead of a conventional DDR- DRAM-only main memory. By combining different memory technologies, an MLM system can potentially offer more us- Able bandwidth and more capacity for a similar cost as a conventional memory system. However, substantial software and hardware design challenges must be overcome to make this potential real. It is our position that the diversity of application access pat- Terns precludes any simple "one size fits all" approach and that better tools and design processes will be needed to ful- fill the potential of MLM. Effcient implementations of MLM will require a high degree of co-design and coordination be- Tween hardware and software. The simulation framework we have built for this study can aid tool building to solve the programming challenges.