- SanDisk unveils Excessive Bandwidth Flash (HBF), a NAND-based different to HBM
- HBF matches HBM bandwidth, providing 8–16x capability at a decrease value
- SanDisk is planning to determine a technical advisory board of trade specialists
It definitely appears as if splitting from Western Digital has lit a hearth below Sandisk. At its latest traders day, the flash reminiscence specialist look the wraps off tremendous giant SSDs, with the promise of even bigger ones to return, and unveiled a brand new, cheaper DRAM different known as 3D Reminiscence Matrix.
On the identical occasion, Sandisk additionally unveiled its Excessive Bandwidth Flash (HBF) idea which is taking goal at HBM by augmenting it with NAND flash to cater to AI inference workloads. Sandisk’s key targets with HBF appears to be to match HBM bandwidth whereas offering 8–16 instances the capability at the same value.
In response to a slide that Sandisk shared, HBF combines BiCS expertise with CBA wafer bonding, permitting for environment friendly high-density stacking. The corporate has developed a proprietary stacking expertise that reportedly delivers ultra-low die warpage, making it attainable to attain 16-die stacking with out main structural points.
Scaling as much as 4TB
The structure of HBF has been developed over the previous yr, with Sandisk incorporating enter from "main AI gamers" (it doesn’t title names, sadly).
The diagram within the slide exhibits an HBF stack, which consists of a number of HBF core dies linked through TSV (By means of-Silicon By way of) and micro bumps, interfacing with a logic die and PHY, which then connects to a GPU, CPU, TPU, or SoC die. Your complete stack sits on an interposer atop a bundle substrate, much like the packaging design utilized in HBM.
HBF isn’t a straight drop-in alternative for HBM, nevertheless it does share the identical electrical interface, so will solely require minor protocol changes, in response to Sandisk.
In one other slide, a GPU with HBM offering 192GB of complete reminiscence, is in contrast with an alternate model combining HBF and HBM that will increase the reminiscence capability to 3TB. A totally optimized setup with solely HBF (which you’ll be able to see on the high of the web page) can scale as much as a formidable 4TB.
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Sandisk's HBF roadmap (under) exhibits how the corporate sees the expertise advancing throughout a number of generations, specializing in capability, learn bandwidth, and vitality effectivity. Within the first technology, HBF establishes a baseline for these metrics. By the second technology, capability is anticipated to extend by 1.5x, whereas learn bandwidth sees a 1.45x enchancment, and vitality effectivity barely decreases to 0.8x. By the third technology (there's no indication of when Sandisk expects to reach at this level), HBF is projected to double in capability and browse bandwidth in comparison with its preliminary model, with vitality effectivity dropping additional to 0.64x.
HBF is prone to obtain some push again from rivals like Samsung and SK Hynix who’re closely invested within the $100 billion HBM market. Painfully conscious of this, Sandisk is seeking to set up an open normal ecosystem, and likewise a technical advisory board made up of trade specialists and key companions.
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