Christ University

Intelligent RAM
A microprocessor into a memory chip

Shashank Kumar 2MCS Reg. No.-1947119

Under the Guidance of
Smitha Vinod

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Outline:
1. RAM and Evolution of RAM technologies.

2. Introduction to IRAM.

3. Inspiration for IRAM

4. IRAM Architecture

5. Application of I-RAM

6. Advantages of IRAM

7. Disadvantages of IRAM

8. Potential and Challenges

9. Conclusion

10. References
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RAM and Evolution of RAM Technologies

What is RAM?

• Electronic memory device made up of transistors and capacitors.

• Used to store data to be used by the CPU.

• Volatile in nature.

• Erasable and Programmable

• Comes in the form of chips of different architectures and data rate.

• Important factor deciding the performance of computers.

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Types of RAM:

1. Static RAMs
2. Dynamic RAMs

Static RAMs
• Made up of pairs of many transistors.
• Doesn’t need continuous refreshing of the charges.
• Very Fast in Nature.
• Requires 3 transistor pairs to store 1 bit of data.
• Expensive
• Low idle power consumption
• Used as CPU cache memory and GPU DAP(digital to analog
converters.)
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Uses of Static RAMs.

• Used as Cache memory of CPUs.(L1,l2,l3 Cache)

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Dynamic RAMs

• Made up of transistor and capacitor pairings.

• One transistor and capacitor pair can store 1 bit of data.

• Can pack 10 times more transistor capacitor pairs than Static RAMs. (More
storage capacity)

• Cheaper compared to SRAMs.

• Comes in Single, Double and Quad Data rate.

• Very Dense in nature resulting in more Data Storage.

• Needs continuous Refreshing of the charge stored in the T-C pairs by

Memory Controllers.

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Uses of Dynamic RAMs.

• Cell Phones

• Desktop Computers

• Digital Signal Controller (DSC)

• Global Positioning System (GPS)

• Personal Data Assistant (PDA)

• Smartphones

• Tablets and Pads

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 Christ University

Introduction to IRAM
Intelligent Random
Access Memory

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Introduction to IRAM
• Histor
y InComputer
a 1996–2004 research project in the
Science Division of the University
of California, Berkeley, the Berkeley IRAM
project explored Computer
Architecture enabled by the wide
bandwidth between memory and processor
made possible when both are designed on
the same IC.
• Intelligence stands
for Microprocessor
and RAM
stands for memory
Fig. 1
IRAM • Merges RAM and
Processor

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Introduction to IRAM
• The i-RAM is a solid-state storage device produced by Gigabyte and released in June
2005.[1] 
• It has four DDR RAM DIMM slots, and a connection via a SATA port enables a PC to
see the i-RAM as a hard disk drive, which can also be made bootable.
• The SATA interface limits available bandwidth to a maximum sustained throughput of
150 MB/s, but allows a latency of 0.1 ms.
• As the DRAM is a volatile memory, an integrated battery allows the contents of
DRAM to be preserved for a limited amount of time after the device's power supply is
interrupted.
• The I-Ram has the advantages of fast transfer rate and access time, no moving parts, a
lower cost than traditional solid-state drives, unlimited write cycles compared to flash
memory and it doesn't slow down over time.
• However, it has the disadvantages of high cost compared to traditional hard drives,
low capacity (4 GiB maximum), the transfer rate restricted by SATA 150 bus (1.5
Gbit/s), it is not physically compatible with all double-sided DDR.

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Introduction to IRAM

Second Generation I-RAM

• The second generation i-RAM, GC-RAMDISK, was on display at Computex 2006.[3]

 Rather than using a PCI slot for powering the drive, Gigabyte had implemented the
GC-RAMDISK as a 5.25" drive unit powered from a 4-pin Molex connector.
• The drive supports four DDR2 memory modules of up to 2 GiB for a total capacity of
up to 8 GiB and the interface supports SATA 3.0 Gbit/s, which doubles the transfer
rate compared to i-RAM.
• Although this version of the I-RAM was displayed at Computex Taipei 2006, during
final revisioning it lost DDR2 and the higher capacity support. The released GC-
RAMDISK[4] still only supports up to DDR-400 with a total storage capacity of 4 GiB.

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Inspiration for IRAM

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Inspiration of IRAM
• Why we need IRAM???

problems:
 Processor-Memory Performance Gap
 “AWKWARDNESS” of high capacity DRAM chips

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Inspiration of IRAM
• Solution of problems
 Provide more cache memory

 Put the processor on SRAM

 Put the processor in DRAM

• Why select DRAM ???

 DRAM is 10 times denser than SRAM.
 Thus, IRAM enables a much larger amount of on-chip memory
than is possible in a conventional architecture.

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Inspiration of IRAM

Time to be double
demand for processing 2
months power and memory
Microprocessor 18 months
DRAM 120 months

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Architecture of IRAM

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IRAM Architecture
• The Key Technologies behind the IRAM technology are,
1) Vector Processing
2) Embedded DRAM and
3) Serial I/O Vector Processing

1)Vector Processing:
 Vector architecture deals with vector processing so represents
only PROCESSOR architecture
 Helps to study parallel processing of IRAM
 Parallel processing carried out by virtual processing of IRAM
processor

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IRAM Architecture

2) Embedded
DRAM• : Embedded technology means a chip is embedded into a device for
control and well execution of operations of that particular device.
During the fabrication the memory chip is embedded into the
• microprocessor to produce IRAM. Thus IRAM becomes a single chip
into which both memory and processor are integrated for high quality
performance due to their coexistence.

• ADVANTAGES:
 High Bandwidth
 Low latency
 Memory Access frequency low
 Memory Flexibility

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IRAM Architecture
• Advantages of Vector
Processing:
 high performance
on demand for
multimedia
processing
 low power for issue
of control logic
 Because of less
Complexity in
design it’s cheap
and very easy
in
implementation

Vector Architecture of IRAM

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IRAM Architecture

3) Serial I/O Vector Processing :

• Due to POOR Processing of earlier technology, Serial I/O Vector
processing is used.
• Much more efficient and cost effective
• Enhances performance of IRAM by offering smooth and faster
path for data transfer without hindering memory and processor
performances

• ADVANTAGES:
 Offers very high band width in terms of GB/sec which is
greater than both
 Pin count is less
 Power Consumption is less than Parallel I/O

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video

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Applications of IRAM

• Scientific computing
• Lossy Compression (JPEG, MPEG video and
audio)
• Cryptography (RSA, DES/IDEA, SHA/MD5)
• Multimedia Processing (compress., graphics,
• audio
Speech synth,
and handwriting
image proc.)
• recognition Operating
• Databases
systems/Networking
(hash/join, data mining,
• Language
image/video run-time
serving)
support (stdlib, garbage
collection)

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 Applications of IRAM
• Nowadays, GIGABYTE is
manufacturing IRAM
commercially

Package Content
• One GIGABTE i-RAM
• One SATA 1.5Gb/s cable
• One i-RAM CD Driver
• One i-RAM Manual

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Advantages of IRAM

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Advantages of IRAM

• Higher Bandwidth- RAM and Processor are on single chip so less

BUS length and higher data transfer.

• Reduced Latency-Decrease time delay due to not multiplexing

addresses and less BUS length. Also doesn’t have parallel
DRAMs and less no. of pins.

• Energy Efficient- Energy per memory access

= AEL1 + MRL1 x AEL2 + MRL2 x AEoff-chip
where AE = access energy and MR = miss rate

Doesn’t need of L2 cache. So energy Efficiency is HIGH.

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Advantages of IRAM

• Low Fabrication Cost- Fabrication of RAM and Processor is

done in a single fabrication line.

• Compact Architecture- Integrates several chips into ‘One

Chip’. So, SMALL board area required.

• Memory Flexibility- Over conventional designs is the ability

to adjust both the size and width of the on-chip DRAM.

• Less Device Errors- I-RAM is immune to fragmentation.

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Disadvantages of IRAM

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 Disadvantages of IRAM

• Difficult Implementation- Completely new Architecture

For the acceptance of this new technology we have to
discard our current products and technologies.

• Unupgradeable Memory- DRAM chips are embedded in the

IRAM chip, So,we will not be able to upgrade the memory
further.

• Costly Testing- Adding a processor would significantly

increase the test time.

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Potential and Challenges

Intelligent RAM (IRAM) may lead to a different style

of computer than those based on conventional microprocessors.
IRAM technology offers the following potential:

• Improve memory latency by factors of 5 to 10 and

memory bandwidth by factors of 50 to 100, by redesigning
the memory interface and exploiting the proximity
of on-chip memory.

• Improve energy efficiency of memory by factors of

2 to 4, primarily by going off-chip less frequently.

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 Potential and Challenges

• “Intelligent” Video Game- An IRAM combining the processor, graphics

accelerator, and 4 to 16 megabytes of memory could exploit the orders of
magnitude in memory bandwidth and small board area.

• “Intelligent” PDA - Palm-top PDAs are becoming increasingly popular. If an

IRAM could include sufficient computing power to enable speaker trained,
isolated-word speech input to a
PDA, the device would be much more useful.

• “Intelligent” Disk- An attractive chip for disk manufacturers might be a low-

power IRAM with 4 to 16 MB of memory for disk caches and networking code
plus serial I/O for the interface to disk and local area networks.

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References
• IRAM - Chips that remember and compute, IEEE International Solid State
Circuits Conference
• Vector IRAM - ISA and Micro-architecture, Computer Science Division,
University of California, Berkeley
• Vector IRAM - A Media-oriented Vector Processor with Embedded DRAM,
Computer Science Division, University of California, Berkeley
• A Media-enhanced vector architecture for embedded memory
systems, Computer Science Division, University of California, Berkeley
• IRAM - Overcoming the I/O Bus Bottleneck, Denver, CO, USA
• Memory-Intensive Benchmarks: IRAM vs. Cache-Based Machines,

• The energy efficiency of IRAM architectures, 24th Annual International

Symposium on Computer Architecture
http://iram.cs.berkeley.edu/
http://wikipedia.org
• Intelligent RAM (IRAM): the Industrial Setting, Applications, and Architectures
David Patterson, Krste Asanovic, Aaron Brown, Richard Fromm,
And others. Computer Science Division, University of California, Berkeley CA 94720-1776

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Any questions?

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Thank You!

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