SK Hynix today announced that it has developed its first DDR5 DRAM-based CXL (Compute Express Link) memory samples and strengthened its presence in next-generation memory solutions market. The form factor of the sample is EDSFF (Enterprise & Data Center Standard Form Factor) E3.S and it supports PCIe 5.0 x8 Lane, uses DDR5 standard DRAM and is equipped with CXL controllers. CXL based on PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), is a new standardized interface that helps increase the efficiency of utilizing CPUs, GPUs, accelerators, and memory.
The essential point of the CXL memory market is expandability. The CXL memory allows for flexible memory expansion compared to current server market, where the memory capacity and performance are fixed once the server platform is adopted. CXL also has high growth potential as it is an interface spotlighted for high performance computing systems such as AI and big data related applications.
The first CXL memory device developed by SK hynix is a 96GB product composed of 24Gb DDR5 DRAMs based on 1anm, which is the latest tech node. SK hynix expects high customer satisfaction of this product with flexible configuration of bandwidth and capacity expanded cost-efficiently. SK hynix also developed the Heterogeneous Memory Software Development Kit (HMSDK)3) exclusively for CXL memory devices. The kit will include features to improve system performance and monitor the systems while running various workloads.
SK hynix plans to distribute it as an open source in the fourth quarter of 2022. It is expected that end users such as software developers will be able to utilize SK hynix’s CXL memory more effectively. SK hynix has prepared a separate sample for evaluation to help customers evaluate it with ease. As there is currently no server which supports EDSFF E3.S x8 Lane, SK hynix replaced the dedicated samples’ EDSFF pins with PCIe to support customers install the samples to existing PCIe slots. SK hynix has participated in the CXL consortium from an early stage, and is looking to secure CXL memory market leadership.
