I remember reading about the smart memory in the Xbox 360, the eDRAM for the video memory constructed by NEC Japan.
That memory was special because it had its own logic to perform basic functions, lowering the burden on the xenos gpu and on the gpu to eDram memory bus.
I vaguely remember that commands where available to initialize bit cells in a memory range to 0 or to 1 or a give value byte or supported word wise...
Imagine if this was common supported for everyday smartphone soc memory, raspberry pi soc pop memory, our X64 PC memory , future game consoles :
So if one would do a malloc or calloc, it would be possible for the operating system to just pass an adress value and a size value to the dram and the internal controller inside the dram memory chip itself would be able to handle all this autonomously, offloading the memory controller
from the cpu. Even an MMU or DMA controller would not be necessary to do such bit cell initialization. Saving electrical power and saving valuable available memory bus bandwidth.
Reducing EMC and EMI noise.
This could even be done on a memory page level. Like having a page actively open for reading and writing while having another page initialized in order to make it ready to be used.
Smarter DRAM, that would be a good solution. The OS have to keep track of course, and wait for the DRAM to acknowlegde that the job is finished but al this would be a great improvement, passing the return result back to the API and user program.
My big question is, is the DDR4 and DDR5 memory of these days capable of such features ?
Is HBM memory capable of such features ?
Are there known POP SoC's capable of such features.
Are there memory developments coming that are capable of such features ?
Or are we computer users castrated again by patent abuse or lazy companies that do not want Japanese technical innovation to spread around the world ?
I noticed that our hardware, even from common smartphones is very powerful, but the software ecosystem... Sigh...
I know it is patents, and code obfuscation, and legacy issues that had to be solved by paperclips and bandaid solutions. And of course to be able to sell a new phone, the software updates have to create some issues with previous models that have to become outdated IMHO...
That memory was special because it had its own logic to perform basic functions, lowering the burden on the xenos gpu and on the gpu to eDram memory bus.
I vaguely remember that commands where available to initialize bit cells in a memory range to 0 or to 1 or a give value byte or supported word wise...
Imagine if this was common supported for everyday smartphone soc memory, raspberry pi soc pop memory, our X64 PC memory , future game consoles :
So if one would do a malloc or calloc, it would be possible for the operating system to just pass an adress value and a size value to the dram and the internal controller inside the dram memory chip itself would be able to handle all this autonomously, offloading the memory controller
from the cpu. Even an MMU or DMA controller would not be necessary to do such bit cell initialization. Saving electrical power and saving valuable available memory bus bandwidth.
Reducing EMC and EMI noise.
This could even be done on a memory page level. Like having a page actively open for reading and writing while having another page initialized in order to make it ready to be used.
Smarter DRAM, that would be a good solution. The OS have to keep track of course, and wait for the DRAM to acknowlegde that the job is finished but al this would be a great improvement, passing the return result back to the API and user program.
My big question is, is the DDR4 and DDR5 memory of these days capable of such features ?
Is HBM memory capable of such features ?
Are there known POP SoC's capable of such features.
Are there memory developments coming that are capable of such features ?
Or are we computer users castrated again by patent abuse or lazy companies that do not want Japanese technical innovation to spread around the world ?
I noticed that our hardware, even from common smartphones is very powerful, but the software ecosystem... Sigh...
I know it is patents, and code obfuscation, and legacy issues that had to be solved by paperclips and bandaid solutions. And of course to be able to sell a new phone, the software updates have to create some issues with previous models that have to become outdated IMHO...
Last edited: