Micron Technology has begun sampling its multiplexed rank dual inline memory module (MRDIMMs), promising significant advancements in performance and efficiency for data centers.
Micron Technology says these innovative MRDIMMs are designed to support increasingly demanding workloads, offering superior bandwidth, capacity, and latency improvements compared to current TSV RDIMMs. This new memory solution will be compatible with Intel Xeon 6 processors and is poised to accelerate applications requiring more than 128GB of memory per DIMM slot.
Enhanced Performance and Efficiency
Praveen Vaidyanathan, vice president and general manager of Micron’s Compute Products Group, highlighted the breakthrough capabilities of MRDIMMs. “Micron’s latest innovative main memory solution, MRDIMM, delivers the much-needed bandwidth and capacity at lower latency to scale AI inference and HPC applications on next-generation server platforms,” he said.
“MRDIMMs significantly lower the amount of energy used per task while offering the same reliability, availability and serviceability capabilities as RDIMMs, thus providing customers a flexible solution that scales performance.”
Technical Advancements
The MRDIMMs leverage DDR5 physical and electrical standards, enabling substantial improvements in bandwidth, efficiency, and latency:
Up to 39 percent increase in effective memory bandwidth.
Greater than 15 percent better bus efficiency.
Up to 40 percent latency improvements compared to RDIMMs.
Supporting capacities from 32GB to 256GB in both standard and tall form factors (TFF), the MRDIMMs are optimized for high-performance 1U and 2U servers. The TFF modules feature an improved thermal design, reducing DRAM temperatures by up to 20 degrees Celsius, which enhances cooling efficiency in data centers and optimizes system energy consumption for memory-intensive workloads.
Industry Collaboration and Integration
Matt Langman, vice president and general manager of Datacenter Product Management, Intel Xeon 6, commented on the seamless integration of MRDIMMs with existing server platforms. “Our customers will benefit from Micron’s broad portfolio of MRDIMMs ranging from 32GB to 256GB densities and in standard and tall form factors that will be validated with Intel Xeon 6 platforms.”
Scott Tease, vice president and general manager of AI and High-Performance Computing at Lenovo, added, “Micron MRDIMMs will help close the bandwidth gap for memory-intensive workloads like AI inference, AI retraining and countless high-performance computing workloads.”
Availability and Future Developments
Micron MRDIMMs are available now and are expected to ship in volume in the second half of 2024. Future generations of MRDIMMs will continue to enhance memory bandwidth per channel, promising up to 45 percent better performance over similar-generation RDIMMs.
