New Spansion EcoRAM Class of Memory

Spansion, Inc., provider of Flash memory solutions, unveiled plans for a new class of memory, called Spansion EcoRAM, designed to solve the growing energy consumption crisis in Internet data centers by replacing power-hungry DRAM in data center servers. When combined with Virident Systems, Inc.‘s new GreenGateway technology announced today, Spansion EcoRAM can help slash energy consumption by up to 75 percent in Internet data center servers, and offer four times the memory capacity of traditional DRAM-only servers for the same energy consumption.

Spansion EcoRAM board

The Data Center Energy Crisis
According to recent reports from Dr. Jonathan Koomey, an expert in energy efficiency and a Consulting Professor at Stanford University, data centers are an important and rapidly growing consumer of electricity. Between 2000 and 2005, data center energy consumption doubled, from a total of 71 billion kilowatt hours per year (kWh/yr) to over 150 billion kWh/yr, with the U.S. and Europe responsible for about two-thirds of the total. If current trends persist, data center electricity use will continue to grow at a rapid pace, with Asia’s growth outpacing the rest of the world.

"With Spansion EcoRAM and Virident’s GreenGateway, we have the potential to cut the world’s energy consumption in Internet data center servers by up to 75 percent and reduce the total cost of ownership for Internet companies," said Bertrand Cambou, Spansion president and CEO. "The application of MirrorBit technology to the Internet Server market is a critical milestone in our move to extend the applicability of this technology beyond the traditional NOR Flash memory segment."

Spansion EcoRAM Advantages over other Memory Options
Internet data center servers use DRAM in Dual-in-line Memory Modules (DIMMs) to provide virtually instantaneous access to data. These systems additionally use conventional hard drives for deeper content storage, such as lower-ranked search information. DRAM offers fast access to data, but consumes tremendous amounts of power. In addition, the amount of DRAM in a single server is limited due to energy constraints at the DIMM level and a limited number of DIMM sockets, requiring IT managers to increase the total number of servers in their data centers to meet the burgeoning need for instant access to data with increased capacity.

Due to the requirement for high-performance random access to provide virtually instantaneous data access, Internet data center servers can not utilize NAND Flash memory, which features 1/800th the random read performance of DRAM. Hard disk drives, even Solid State Disks, do not support the random read performance required.

Traditional NOR Flash memory in general is moving ahead of DRAM to smaller process nodes and lower power consumption, but features slower write performance and lower density than required.

Spansion EcoRAM transcends the available memory alternatives, with significant potential benefits for data center solutions:

• Read performance to meet the requirements for fast random access
• 1/8 the energy consumption of DRAM
• 10x the reliability compared to DRAM
• Die densities two-to-four times greater than conventional floating gate NOR
• Write performance two-to-ten times greater than that of traditional NOR Flash memory

With power consumption a fraction of DRAM, Spansion EcoRAM takes advantage of the fast read and write speeds of the MirrorBit Eclipse architecture, and enables eight times more capacity per DIMM, which creates the potential for IT managers to replace four conventional DRAM-based servers with only one Spansion EcoRAM-based server. In April 2007, Spansion announced its MirrorBit Eclipse architecture, which combines MirrorBit NOR and ORNAND on a single die, and was specifically designed to feature high-performance read and write performance at high densities for these types of applications.

"There is a class of applications in data centers that are constrained by the addressable main memory a server can handle. Solutions such as Spansion’s, revolving around creative use of technology are critical for solving the growing energy crisis in data centers," said Rufus Connell, vice president, North American ICT (Information and Communication Technology) Research Practice for Frost & Sullivan, an industry consulting company that focuses on market research and analysis for corporate growth. "As memory-bounded apps such as search use grow, conventional server architectures are failing to keep up with the increasing number of queries per second from consumers, which means more servers are needed and more power is needed to run and cool them. It is a real problem for data center operators globally and a solution to help save energy and reduce total cost of ownership is needed sooner rather than later."

With Spansion EcoRAM and Virident’s GreenGateway, Spansion and Virident have created a way to re-architect the memory subsystem so it is still compatible with existing server designs. This is accomplished by leveraging the standard memory DIMM form factor while requiring little platform modification. The complete solution will empower IT Internet data center managers to break from the constraints of DRAM-only servers, and offer higher performance and a richer experience for Internet users by adding up to four times the memory capacity in the data center without increasing power consumption.

"Virident’s driving vision has been to break the limitations imposed by a compute-centric platform in the Internet data center," said Raj Parekh, president and CEO of Virident. "GreenGateway, conceived and designed by Virident, and encompassing silicon, software and hardware innovation, uniquely creates a data centric solution delivering increased performance and lower energy consumption with existing server architectures. Virident’s innovation, together with Spansion EcoRAM, makes both green and growth possible in the data center."

About MirrorBit Technology
MirrorBit technology offers higher yields than traditional floating gate NOR, and scales more easily to higher densities. When compared with floating gate NOR technology, MirrorBit technology offers a simpler memory cell, which requires fewer critical manufacturing steps to produce than competing floating gate technologies. As a result, MirrorBit technology can be produced at a lower overall wafer cost.

For more information on EcoRAM