Memory makers are attempting to win over server operating system developers to get an edge on the Compute Express Link (CXL) market on the horizon.
Samsung, the world’s largest memory maker, is collaborating with Linux giant Red Hat, while rival SK Hynix seems to be aiming to win over the entire ecosystem.
SK Hynix said on Monday that major features of its software development kit HMSDK have been applied to Linux Kernel 6.11. Ubuntu, Fedora, and other OS are also expected to get the update soon.
The South Korean memory maker said using the new features can expand the overall bandwidth of the memory by 30% by optimizing the bandwidth between the memory in use and CXL memory. A feature called access frequency optimization, which moves the data more frequently in use to a faster memory, can increase the overall system performance by over 12%, SK Hynix claimed.
The company said that CXL memory was the next-generation AI memory after high bandwidth memory and that the application of HMSDK on Linux, the most used open-source OS of the world, shows SK Hynix’s software competence in addition to its hardware.
According to W3Techs, Linux accounts for over 75% of the worldwide OS market, followed by Windows Server and other Unix-based OS. Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and other cloud service providers mainly use Linux. Microsoft Azure Service is increasing the use of Linux over its Windows Server.
Meanwhile, Samsung is verifying its CXL technology with Red Hat, which was bought by IBM in 2019. Linux Kernel 6.11 could be added to Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS’ commercial version.
CXL is a PCIe-based high-speed interconnect standard allowing faster data transfer between the CPU, memory, and GPU. The related consortium that sets the standard was formed in March 2019, and members include Samsung, Intel, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Amazon.
CXL is being touted as potentially game-changing for data centers for three reasons: bandwidth, flexibility, and scalability.
A dual-channel DDR5 DRAM offers a bandwidth of 51.2GB per second, while CXL 2.0 PCIe 5.0 will deliver 64GB. CXL can distribute memory capacity between heterogeneous chips (CPU, GPU, FPGA) for smoother data transfer. Unlike DDR5 DRAM modules that are limited by how many slots there are in the mainboard, CXL, through memory sharing and switching can connect more memory modules.
CXL 2.0 is expected to be commercialized within the year. SK Hynix said it was verifying 96GB and 128GB CXL 2.0 memory with a customer. They are expected to go into mass production late in the year.
The CXL market is expected to open in earnest with PCIe 6.0-based CXL 3.0 (which will offer a 256GB bandwidth per second). Intel’s Diamond Rapids launching next year will also support CXL 3.0.
