4 ms·
The reason HBM "isn't deterministic" is because the memory controller sometimes stalls reads when doing a refresh operation. It's possible to pause refreshes [1
by zachbee 3y ago
The reason HBM "isn't deterministic" is because the memory controller sometimes stalls reads when doing a refresh operation. It's possible to pause refreshes [1] or schedule refreshes ahead of time to get HBM and DRAM to act deterministic.
To be fair, that's a huge hassle, and I have no clue what level of support commercial HBM controllers have for refresh pausing or manual refresh scheduling. It could very well be impossible to do in practice -- and regardless, their performance numbers speak for themselves :)
[1] https://memlab.ece.gatech.edu/papers/TACO_2014_1.pdf https://memlab.ece.gatech.edu/papers/TACO_2014_1.pdf