- SanDisk unveils Excessive Bandwidth Flash (HBF), a NAND-based different to HBM
- HBF matches HBM bandwidth, providing 8–16x capability at a decrease price
- SanDisk is planning to determine a technical advisory board of trade specialists
It actually appears as if splitting from Western Digital has lit a hearth beneath Sandisk. At its latest buyers 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 referred to as 3D Reminiscence Matrix.
On the similar occasion, Sandisk additionally unveiled its Excessive Bandwidth Flash (HBF) idea which is taking purpose at HBM by augmenting it with NAND flash to cater to AI inference workloads. Sandisk’s key aims with HBF appears to be to match HBM bandwidth whereas offering 8–16 occasions the capability at the same price.
In response to a slide that Sandisk shared, HBF combines BiCS know-how with CBA wafer bonding, permitting for environment friendly high-density stacking. The corporate has developed a proprietary stacking know-how that reportedly delivers ultra-low die warpage, making it potential 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 identify names, sadly).
The diagram within the slide exhibits an HBF stack, which consists of a number of HBF core dies related through TSV (By-Silicon Through) and micro bumps, interfacing with a logic die and PHY, which then connects to a GPU, CPU, TPU, or SoC die. Your entire stack sits on an interposer atop a package deal substrate, just like the packaging design utilized in HBM.
HBF isn’t a straight drop-in substitute for HBM, nevertheless it does share the identical electrical interface, so will solely require minor protocol changes, based on Sandisk.
In one other slide, a GPU with HBM offering 192GB of whole reminiscence, is in contrast with an alternate model combining HBF and HBM that will increase the reminiscence capability to 3TB. A completely 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 powerful 4TB.
Sandisk’s HBF roadmap (under) exhibits how the corporate sees the know-how advancing throughout a number of generations, specializing in capability, learn bandwidth, and power 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 power effectivity barely decreases to 0.8x. By the third technology (there isn’t any indication of when Sandisk expects to reach at this level), HBF is projected to double in capability and skim bandwidth in comparison with its preliminary model, with power 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.
