Samsung develops industry’s first 128GB DRAM for CXL 2.0

BY Oliver Lester

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, has partnered with Intel to develop the industry’s first 128-gigabyte (GB) DRAM to support Compute Express Link (CXL) 2.0. This landmark achievement builds on Samsung’s development of the industry’s first CXL 1.1-based CXL DRAM in May 2022, and is expected to accelerate the commercialization of next-generation memory solutions.

The new CXL DRAM supports the PCIe 5.0 interface (x8 lanes) and provides a bandwidth of up to 35GB per second. It also supports memory pooling, a memory management technique that allows multiple CXL memory blocks to be bound on a server platform to form a pool, enabling hosts to dynamically allocate memory from the pool as needed. This technology maximizes efficiency while lowering operating costs, allowing customers to reinvest resources into reinforcing their server memory.

“As a member of the CXL Consortium Board of Directors, Samsung Electronics remains at the forefront of CXL technology,” said Jangseok Choi, Vice President of the New Business Planning Team at Samsung Electronics. “This breakthrough development underlines our commitment to expanding the CXL ecosystem even further through partnerships with data center, server, and chipset companies across the industry.”

Intel’s Director of Technology Initiatives, Jim Pappas, also expressed his delight in working with Samsung on their investment towards a vibrant CXL ecosystem. He added that Intel will continue to work with Samsung to foster the growth and adoption of innovative CXL products throughout the industry.

Montage Technology, on the other hand, is excited to mass-produce the first controllers to support CXL 2.0, said Stephen Tai, President of Montage Technology. He added that they look forward to continuing their partnership with Samsung to advance CXL technology and expand its ecosystem.

Samsung plans to start mass-producing CXL 2.0 DRAM later this year and is poised to deliver additional offerings in various capacities to address demand for future computing applications. CXL is a next-generation interface that adds efficiency to accelerators, DRAM, and storage devices used with CPUs in high-performance server systems. Given that its bandwidth and capacity can be expanded when used with the main DRAM, the technology’s advancement is expected to make waves across the next-generation computing market.

The advancement in CXL technology is particularly timely as key technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have led to a rapid rise in demand for high-speed data processing. The technology’s efficiency and lower operating costs are expected to appeal to companies seeking to invest in server memory for such applications.