SK hynix DDR5 White Paper Highlights

According to a white paper co-published by SK Hynix and Intel, the DDR5 server DRAM used with Intel’s CPUs achieved performance levels that were among the best in the market. The websites for SK Hynix and Intel simultaneously posted this white paper.

DDR5 energy efficiency

Since the start of DDR5’s development, the two companies have collaborated closely. This white paper presents the findings of performance assessments of SK hynix’s DDR5 when used with 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (hereinafter referred to as Xeon) that took place over the previous eight months.

The white paper shows how SK Hynix and Intel will usher in an age of more sophisticated data centers with memory and CPUs that give industry-leading performance and energy efficiency. It was published at a time when the server industry has asked for low-power, high performance chips.

The white paper demonstrates that the fourth-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors deliver performance efficiency that is 2.9 times better than the previous generation, while SK Hynix’s DDR5 consumes 14.4% less power than DDR4. DDR5 outperformed DDR4 on servers powered by Xeon in terms of performance per watt3, with floating point computations performing 1.11 times faster and integer computations 1.22 times faster.

The two firms anticipate that buyers of server chips will be able to construct more environmentally friendly data centers because to the energy efficiency offered by DDR5 and Xeon. Customers should see a reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) thanks to the operation of such cost-effective data centers5.

According to the white paper, servers with Intel CPUs and DDR5 memory from SK Hynix provide better data processing rates while using less energy than the products’ earlier versions. They can effectively use high-density DRAMs, which are necessary for processing enormous volumes of data in applications like generative AI, in particular, according to Sungsoo Ryu, director of DRAM Product Planning at SK Hynix.

He said, “They hope that server chip customers will use the insightful data in this white paper to advance their businesses.”

“Intel has been working with SK Hynix and memory industry partners to enable high-performance DDR5 DRAM with 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors,” stated Dr. Dimitrios Ziakas, vice president of Memory and IO Technologies at Intel. For the benefit of our shared clients, these initiatives guarantee that we provide reliable, high-performance, and energy-efficient data center system solutions.

Through partnerships like this most recent one with Intel, SK hynix will improve the server market products it provides. The demand for server DRAMs is anticipated to grow in the second half of 2023, and by concentrating on 1anm and 1bnm DDR5, the fourth and fifth generations of the 10nm manufacturing technology, respectively, SK hynix hopes to improve its financial performance and market share in the server space.

The Intel and SK Hynix DDR5 Ecosystem

.Power Use 14.4%, Integer Computations 1.59 times, Bandwidth 70%

In the white paper, test results are outlined that server customers may utilize as a reference for applying DDR5 to their servers. The speed, performance, and power consumption that may be obtained when DDR5 RAM and Xeon are combined are highlights.

First off, server bandwidth8 increased by 20% with DDR5 compared to DDR4 at the same operating rates of 3,200 megabits per second (Mbps). The server bandwidth was also 70% higher at DDR5’s operating speed of 4,800 Mbps than it was at DDR4’s peak operating speed of 3,200 Mbps9. Due to advances in DDR5’s architecture that reduced internal data transfer delay and secured faster transfer rates than DDR4, the server bandwidth has increased overall.

The investigation allowed SK Hynix to establish that DDR5 used 14.4% less power than DDR4 thanks in major part to new technologies including the High-K Metal Gate (HKMG). A High-K insulating film is used inside a DRAM transistor as part of the next-generation HKMG process to stop leakage current and increase the transistor’s capacitance, or capacity to store charge. Therefore, HKMG semiconductor memory devices have a greater power efficiency.

The Xeon’s integrated accelerators have also performed well in testing. Utilizing the built-in accelerators, businesses may increase the average performance per watt efficiency for the target workloads by up to 2.9 times compared to the previous generation of CPUs. These two technologies worked together to provide DDR5 and Xeon an outstanding 50% increase in bandwidth and a 14.4% decrease in power consumption.

The white paper also displays the computational efficiency of a DDR5 and Xeon system. The businesses compared performance using the specialist testing tool SPEC CPU 2017.

The comparison revealed that floating point calculations were 1.43 times quicker than the technology used in the previous generation, while integer computations were 1.59 times faster. When compared to the system’s predecessor, the performance per watt likewise experienced an increase in efficiency of 1.11 times for floating point calculations and 1.22 times for integer calculations.

The sophisticated system also did well on the Intel Memory Latency Checker (MLC) test, which gauges memory performance and latency. in contrast to the prior generation.

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