replacing DRAM - Intel is roughing Samsung's and SK-Hynix' feathers with eDRAM

[zMeul]

source: http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/article/11884/news-intel-shaking-global-semiconductor-market

it all started when SK-Hynix pushed their HBM memory as JEDEC standard instead of backing Intel's and Micron's plan for Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC)
now, Intel is pushing back and directly "hurting" the two biggest DRAM manufacturers, Samsung and SK-Hynix
so, what's going on?
 

The U.S. chip maker recently revealed its ambition to replace the functions of DRAM by strengthening the function of memory surrounding DRAM, including CPUs and SSDs, at this year's Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, California

Intel will feature Embedded DRAM (eDRAM) in its 6th-generation Skylake CPU to improve graphics processing performance, using its 22-nm class process technology. Unlike DRAM, eDRAM is located in the CPU die and handles the system cache. As the product performance and storage capacity of eDRAM improves, so can manufacturers reduce their dependence on DRAM.

Industry analysts believe that this method, which was adopted by Haswell and Broadwell, has become one of Intel's core strategies, going beyond the experimental level. Semiconductor magazines based in Japan and the U.S. said that in the mid to long term, Intel might integrate the existing CPU and DRAM realms in package form based on eDRAM.

A local industry source explained, "Intel integrated eDRAM into a package in Haswell, Broadwell, and Skylake in order to secure the memory bandwidth needed for large core CPUs." The source added, "To conclude, Intel will no longer depend on an improvement in data transmission speeds of DDR Memory, led by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, so as to expand memory bandwidth."

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so far, Intel has no plans to bring Skylake CPUs with eDRAM on the desktop market: https://techreport.com/news/28950/intel-no-plans-for-a-socketed-skylake-with-edram
 

Intel has no plans to produce a socketed Skylake derivative with eDRAM for desktop systems.

The firm didn't elaborate on the reasons behind this decision when we asked, but there has been a change in leadership. Lisa Graff, who ran Intel's desktop business for the last couple of years, has left that role, and Gregory Bryant has taken over as Corporate Vice President and GM of Desktop Client Platforms. On Graff's watch, Intel produced several unconventional products for desktop systems based on user feedback, including the Devil's Canyon K-series products, the unlocked Pentium Anniversary Edition, and the socketed desktop Broadwell parts. With Graff out, we'll have to see whether Intel continues to deliver innovative desktop products like these under Bryant's leadership.

There may be some hope. A source familiar with Intel's plans told us that we may see a revival of the socketed desktop parts with eDRAM as part of next year's 14-nm Kaby Lake refresh.

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what's next? I really like them to go after nVidia

bottom line: you fck with Intel? you fck with god

[TrigrH]

 

so far, Intel has no plans to bring Skylake CPUs with eDRAM on the desktop market

 

d®amm it

[Lethal Seraph]

This is gonna be good.

[MageTank]

This won't impact Samsung or SK Hynix in the slightest. eDRAM will do nothing to the current production of memory, and likely never will. Whatever they can fit on the die, you will always be able to fit more on a DIMM module. Capacity demands are still growing too. 

[SpaceNugget]

I could accept if you said rustling feathers, some people swing that way, but roughing feathers? to far man.

[Prysin]

well i can see the benefit performance wise of doing this...

 

but to keep high levels of RAM available you would need to either nerf the CPU size, or produce bigger dies... bigger dies creates bigger sockets. Bigger sockets makes it harder for mobo manufacturers to fit all the bells and whistles. It causes issues with compatibility with heatsinks and so on....

 

So while this may seem like a good idea, unfortunatly, i sense that there is a hidden cost... a cost we, the consumer, are going to pay. And boy will we pay, because intel....

[samcool55]

So who the hell is fighting who now?

eDRAM, x-point (or whatever it's called) HBM, HMC, i don't understand it at all and not even all of them are available O_o

[zMeul]

This won't impact Samsung or SK Hynix in the slightest. eDRAM will do nothing to the current production of memory, and likely never will. Whatever they can fit on the die, you will always be able to fit more on a DIMM module. Capacity demands are still growing too.

for SoCs, laptops, tablets .. oh yes it will hurt DRAM sales for both Hynix and Samsung

why do you think Intel has released so many Skylake based SKUs

[MageTank]

for SoCs, laptops, tablets .. oh yes it will hurt DRAM sales for both Hynix and Samsung

You are making the assumption they will be able to fit 2-4gb on these devices. So far, the max we have seen is 128mb. Assuming that they CAN do it, 2-4gb is still a severe limitation for gaming, and will likely be seen as a detriment rather than a boon. Granted, you are correct about tablets and SoC's. Just for laptops, 4gb is kinda the bare minimum these days. Taking into consideration what your OS uses, how much browsers use, and what even the lowest gaming uses. Even business machines struggle under sub-4GB.

 

I guess it all depends entirely on how much eDRAM intel can fit on the die. I am guessing not much, but hey, i could be wrong.

[zMeul]

You are making the assumption they will be able to fit 2-4gb on these devices. So far, the max we have seen is 128mb. Assuming that they CAN do it, 2-4gb is still a severe limitation for gaming, and will likely be seen as a detriment rather than a boon. Granted, you are correct about tablets and SoC's. Just for laptops, 4gb is kinda the bare minimum these days. Taking into consideration what your OS uses, how much browsers use, and what even the lowest gaming uses. Even business machines struggle under sub-4GB.

 

I guess it all depends entirely on how much eDRAM intel can fit on the die. I am guessing not much, but hey, i could be wrong.

aren't you recalling AMD has already plans to fit HBM onto their APUs ?!

[Me1z]

What I'm getting out of this is that eventually sticks of RAM will no longer be necessary. After the GPU, south bridge and voltage regulators were moved off the motherboard and integrated into the CPU itself, it only makes sense that RAM would be the next target. I'd hate to be a memory manufacturer at this point, but progress requires the shrinking of technologies and you're bound to step on some toes in the process. If anything, this should be a wake up call to the industry and let everyone know how important it is that we get more players in the x86 CPU market. At the end of the day, the CPU will eventually become a self contained computer system requiring no 3rd party components. If anyone wants to be even remotely relevant in the hardware industry a couple decades from now, they better jump into CPU manufacturing while they still can. With how much Samsung wastes on phones each year, would it really hurt for them to shell out on an x86 licence and at least give it a shot?

[zMeul]

AMD: Intel, your IGPs are shit!

Intel: O'really?!

Hynix: what's that? HMC? nop! .. HBM

Intel: O'really!?

nVidia: Larabee? nop! can't have that

Intel: you're next!

[MageTank]

aren't you recalling AMD has already plans to fit HBM onto their APUs ?!

I know that HBM is going on their APU's. That has nothing to do with this though. HBM on the APU's will serve only the onboard graphics. They will still be using memory slots for the rest of the system. This article makes it sound like Intel having memory on the die will completely replace the need for normal memory standards, thus hurting the sales of Hynix and Samsung. HBM suffers the same fate too, with 4gb being the current limitation. Even if HBM2 changes that, there will always be a surface area limitation when it comes to fitting it on the die.

 

My point is, if Intel is just adding the cache on top of allowing normal memory slots, good, that will be fine, but it wont hurt Samsung or Hynix. If they are doing it and completely removing the need for normal DIMM slots, then they are going to fail, quite hard.

[PlayStation 2]

Samsung and SK Hynix has AMD. And most other people on board. Even Nvidia. Intel and Micron, it's just them doing eDRAM.

[zMeul]

snip

about AMD, nop .. they plan to replace system RAM with HBM entirely - that's the whole point of a SoC

[MageTank]

about AMD, nop .. they plan to replace system RAM with HBM entirely - that's the whole point of a SoC

Really? Because their graph about Zen completely disagrees with you. 

 

Notice the 4 DDR4 controllers on it. They are even claiming 16GB of HBM memory on the die (while i doubt it, i could still be wrong). They are not planning on doing away with normal memory.

[jos]

Hope theyy release a normal SKU with this in future

[zMeul]

Really? Because their graph about Zen completely disagrees with you.

then, frankly .. they're quite idiots if they plan to put 16GB of HBM solely for the GPU

mind you, PS4 uses 8GB of GDDR5 as unified RAM

[MageTank]

then, frankly .. they're quite idiots if they plan to put 16GB of HBM solely for the GPU

mind you, PS4 uses 8GB of GDDR5 as unified RAM

Oh, i agree with you. I call BS on that 16gb, but according to their block diagram that we've seen previously, i doubt it will be able to be used as unified system memory. If it could, it would be sweet, but there are just so much going on in the x86 desktop environment, and the fine control over timings would be non-existent on these different memory solutions.

 

No matter what, the enthusiasts will always want normal memory, just for the sake of being able to tinker with it. There might come a day where these embedded memory solutions replace physical DIMM modules, but that day is not now, or in the near future.

[Tomsen]

Wouldn't surprise me if Intel would have some future SKU with only on-chip memory. Mostlikely start from low-end off, phones, tablets, laptops, and so on, where you usually don't upgrade your memory capacity anyway.

High-end and servers still will need additional memory.

[SurvivorNVL]

Alright.  Now for massive CPUs and to bring back the glory days of XL-ATX and HPTX!  

[Nielips]

You are making the assumption they will be able to fit 2-4gb on these devices. So far, the max we have seen is 128mb. Assuming that they CAN do it, 2-4gb is still a severe limitation for gaming, and will likely be seen as a detriment rather than a boon. Granted, you are correct about tablets and SoC's. Just for laptops, 4gb is kinda the bare minimum these days. Taking into consideration what your OS uses, how much browsers use, and what even the lowest gaming uses. Even business machines struggle under sub-4GB.

 

I guess it all depends entirely on how much eDRAM intel can fit on the die. I am guessing not much, but hey, i could be wrong.

The PC's we use at work are 32bit with 2GBs of RAM so that's not really true, they do struggle in some programs (excel, access), but it is entirley possible.

[MageTank]

The PC's we use at work are 32bit with 2GBs of RAM so that's not really true, they do struggle in some programs (excel, access), but it is entirley possible.

I never said it was impossible. I only said that when going under 4gb, even business applications (like you mentioned, Excel and Access) struggle depending on your OS, and what kind of multi tasking you do. Chrome can use a ton of memory at times. 

[Nielips]

A lot of multitasking to be honest, but unlike a home PC they don't have all the little extras installed on them. I can imagine a lot on businesses are like the company I work for and have 32 bit machines from like 2011 or so due to price.

[LukaP]

you guys who are thinking about this in term of DDR tech are completly wrong. When this matures, and intel completly removes DDR controllers from the CPU, they will be in a 3D process era, and they will just stack the DRAM into however much you need, on top of the CPU. so there will be an X core CPU with a certain frequency and different amounts of ram on it. May be XPoint 2/3 by then

 

Hynix is screwed. Samsung will need to try and get an x86 licence to keep their chip business competitive. Mark my words