Optically connected memory for disaggregated data centers

Jorge Gonzalez, Alexander Gazman, Maarten Hattink, Mauricio G. Palma, Meisam Bahadori, Ruth Rubio-Noriega, Lois Orosa, Madeleine Glick, Onur Mutlu, Keren Bergman, Rodolfo Azevedo

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Recent advances in integrated photonics enable the implementation of reconfigurable, high-bandwidth, and low energy-per-bit interconnects in next-generation data centers. We propose and evaluate an Optically Connected Memory (OCM) architecture that disaggregates the main memory from the computation nodes in data centers. OCM is based on micro-ring resonators (MRRs), and it does not require any modification to the DRAM memory modules. We calculate energy consumption from real photonic devices and integrate them into a system simulator to evaluate performance. Our results show that (1) OCM is capable of interconnecting four DDR4 memory channels to a computing node using two fibers with 1.07 pJ energy-per-bit consumption and (2) OCM performs up to 5.5x faster than a disaggregated memory with 40G PCIe NIC connectors to computing nodes.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings - 2020 IEEE 32nd International Symposium on Computer Architecture and High Performance Computing, SBAC-PAD 2020
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages43-50
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781728199245
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2020
Externally publishedYes
Event32nd IEEE International Symposium on Computer Architecture and High Performance Computing, SBAC-PAD 2020 - Virtual, Porto, Portugal
Duration: 8 Sep 202011 Sep 2020

Publication series

NameProceedings - Symposium on Computer Architecture and High Performance Computing
Volume2020-September
ISSN (Print)1550-6533

Conference

Conference32nd IEEE International Symposium on Computer Architecture and High Performance Computing, SBAC-PAD 2020
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityVirtual, Porto
Period8/09/2011/09/20

Keywords

  • DRAM
  • Data-centers
  • Disaggregated computing
  • Disaggregated memory
  • Memory systems
  • Photonics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Optically connected memory for disaggregated data centers'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this