16-08-2017, 12:32 PM
The goal of Intelligent RAM (IRAM) is to design a cost-effective computer by designing a processor in a memory manufacturing process, rather than in a conventional logic manufacturing process, and include memory on the chip. To design a processor in a DRAM process you must learn about the business and culture of DRAMs, which is very different from microprocessors.
IRAM is attractive today for many reasons. First, the gap between the performance of processors and DRAMs has been extended to 500o per year for ten years. So, despite the heroic efforts of application developers, compiler writers and architects, today there are more applications restricted by memory speeds than in the past.
Second, since the actual processor occupies only a third of the array, the approaching gigabit DRAM has enough capacity for integer programs and information sets to match on a chip. In the past, so little memory can fit onchip with the CPU that IRAMs were considered primarily as building blocks for multiprocessors.
Third, DRAM matrices have grown by about 500 ° of each generation; DRAMs are being created with more metal layers to accelerate the longer lines of larger chips. And also, the high speed synchronous DRAM interface would require fast transistors in the DRAM chip. These 2 DRAM trends should build DRAM logic closer to the speed of logic in logical fabs than in the past.