FPGA-based Prototyping Systems for Emerging Memory Technologies

Abstract

MasterAs DRAM faces its scaling limit, several new memory technologies are considered as candidates for replacing or complementing DRAM main memory. Compared to DRAM, the new memories have two major differences, non-volatility and write overhead in terms of endurance, latency and power. We built two different FPGA-based evaluation boards to evaluate hardware and software designs for new-memory-based main memory: one was a DRAM subsystem with parameterizable latency and non-volatile emulation, and the other used actual new memory chips namely phase-change RAM (PRAM). We experimented with primitive functions and SQLite-based benchmarks on Linux, verifying the workings of new functionalities, e.g., non-volatility and evaluating the impacts of new memory on software performance. In our experiments, a simple design with DRAM/PRAM hybrid memory offers persistency with a performance overhead level 1.8x longer execution time on average, compared with DRAM-only main memory