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It's more of an extinction than a death. If SRAM can't shrink it will eventually be replaced by other technologies that can.
by richardjam73 4y ago
It's more of an extinction than a death. If SRAM can't shrink it will eventually be replaced by other technologies that can.
- EarlKing 4y agoNot exactly. SRAM will be replaced by other technologies that can if and only if there is a commensurate increase in speed (since that's the whole point of using SRAM over DRAM).
- _hypx 4y agoThere's already talk of STT-MRAM or SOT-MRAM replacing SRAM. They offer similar performance while also being non-volatile. If SRAM scaling ends, this becomes a much more promising technology. https://semiengineering.com/sot-mram-to-challenge-sram/ https://semiengineering.com/sot-mram-to-challenge-sram/
- marcosdumay 4y agoGood luck making the next step of memory miniaturization with a magnetic technology. There's a reason magnetics were popular when circuits where finger-sized, and completely disappeared when they got smaller. It may not be impossible to make 3D magnetic circuits that match 2D electronic ones, but it's very close to that.
- _hypx 4y agoThese things are more accurate called "spintronics." They are very different from conventional magnetic recording technologies.
- bippingchip 4y agoHaving worked closely on the circuit side of things with folks doing research on spintronics and STT-MRAM devices: it’s going to be a very long time still before this can replace embedded SRAM. The MRAM itself can be made quite small, but you still need an access transistor and wrote currents are still too high, which means very big transistors, which then dominate memory area… Also, writing is much slower compared to SRAM. It’s a very nice embedded flash replacement though…
- marcosdumay 4y agoI have high hopes for spintronics on the power efficiency front, but for miniaturization, they are as much of a hassle as any other magnetic technology.
- nomel 4y ago> while also being non-volatile For something like a cache on a CPU (the main use of SRAM), what's the purpose of it being non-volatile? SRAM doesn't need refreshing, and it's a relatively small percentage of total power.
- chongli 4y agoIt may be a small percentage of total power at full load but what about at idle? Modern CPUs try to optimize power usage by remaining idle as much as possible. When idle, power usage is roughly in proportion to die area fraction. Since caches have been getting larger and larger this would represent a larger fraction of total power at idle.
- _hypx 4y agoLess power is still better. Also, if we have to solve the SRAM scaling problem with 3D chip stacking, this will be an issue.
- nsteel 4y agoIt's also even more expensive. As if the upcoming nodes weren't already ridiculous in that respect.
- anonymousDan 4y agoIt would be very useful in combination with NVRAM main memory since you no longer have to deal with crash consistency issues arising from your cache being wiped on a reboot.
- nomel 4y agoWhat's the point of reboot, if not to reset state?
- anonymousDan 4y agoPoorly worded on my part, I simply meant restart after a crash.
- pclmulqdq 4y agoThese will not replace SRAM in leading process nodes. Some microcontrollers will use MRAM as a unified SRAM/Flash memory space, but that will probably be all.
- _hypx 4y agoMRAM is faster than DRAM. It can do more than that. It has a real chance of filling the gap between SRAM and DRAM, possible replacing SRAM where density is needed.
- cryptonector 4y agoIncrease in speed if there's no decrease in density that's too painful. Or increase in density if there's no decrease in speed that's too painful.