HP preps memristor-based successor to server CPUs

HP preps memristor-based successor to server CPUs

SAN JOSE, Calif. – HP Labs continues to make progress on its long term vision of smart memories based on its memristors as alternatives to server CPUs. The devices are one of several new categories of chips likely to seize the moment of disruptive changes in data center technologies and workloads ahead, said an HP Labs researcher.

Separately, Hewlett-Packard Co. is expected to announce within weeks the next steps in its Project Moonshot, its work on ARM- and Atom-based servers. HP is working with a broad group of companies including processor providers AMD, Applied Micro, Calxeda, Cavium and Intel on the project.

So far HP has announced an Atom-based server using Intel’s Centerton processor. It suggested it would use cartridges to flexibly upgrade a single server chassis for a wide range of ARM- and Atom-based chips in 2013 and beyond.

On a three-to-five year horizon, HP Labs is working on what it calls "nanostores." The chips combine memristors and logic that could challenge microprocessors in a new era of designs based on novel system architectures and memory hierarchies, said Parthasarathy Ranganathan, an HP Labs researcher in a keynote at the Server Design Summit here.

“We have the opportunity for new building block,” said Ranganathan. “It’s really a 3-D stack amenable to traditional workloads and even more so to new workloads, really changing the game with potentially a hundred-fold increase in performance per watt."

HP Labs continues to conduct experiments on the nanostore concept with promising results. But Ranganathan declined to provide any specifics, noting the work is still as much as three years from commercial products.

Such devices could ride a confluence of multiple waves of change. “The technology changes and workloads inflections ahead are incredibly interesting for system design,” he said.

In computing, he noted processors made a “sharp right turn” in about 2005 when performance gains for single core processors plateaued and multicore architectures took off.

In storage, disk drive capacity has outpaced data access times. DRAM capacity growth has taken a “soft right turn” from traditional levels of 60 percent a year to about 25 percent a year, he noted.

The rise of server SoCs and eventually 3-D stacks along with flash memory in server designs could help breakthrough such bottlenecks. The changes come about the same time that networking is shifting more deeply from copper to optical links.

Separately, data growth is far outpacing Moore’s Law, driving new workloads. The researcher noted a “growing complexity and dynamism of data access.” Today’s searches increasingly involve accessing multiple real-time and static databases as well as overlaid sources of personal and contextual information.

“Compared to a simple click, which once was just to a single Web server, we now have very sophisticated data analysis from multiple repositories with complex cross correlations,” he said. “It’s big data, but it’s also fast data from multiple streams with deep analytics."

Related stories:

• 3-D memristor chip debuts
• HP builds prototype for Calxeda ARM server
• ARM servers: Heavy lifting, big payoffs ahead

TAG:HP Labs Project Moonshot Memristors Nanostores Servers ARM Atom Intel Processors Memory Storage