Computing industry is going through rapid phase of development and revolution wherein computing ability is being improved by thirty percent with each passing decade. But the major problem faced by the computing industry is ‘memory’ expansion which has caused a huge strain on the semiconductor segment. DRAM happens to be driving relatively each and every segment of the computing based market which comprises of not just the Smartphone, personal computers, laptops and supercomputers but also the memory device segment.
Over the past few years memory devices have gained transaction and popularity among the consumers which had turned them into a dominant force which is actively giving stiff competition to the traditional computing market. A new computing industry consortium has come into being with prominent partners across the industry and this consortium has been dubbed as Gen-Z. Gen-Z aim is to develop a new memory interface which can help in tying various components together in a single entity for better profit and value to the end users.
Problems to solve for Gen-Z
Currently it is not possible to scale up the DRAM performance without resulting into unwanted issues later on. The major reason for this problem is associated to the theory that the amount of bandwidth which is made available to each core of the DRAM usually decreases which limits the performance of the DRAM. Even choosing different robust component will not help in stooping the subsequent decrease in the amount of bandwidth available to each core which simply goes down.
Gen-Z brings an elegant solution to this problem
Instead of spending time towards increasing the fundamental functional limit of the DRAM; Gen-Z wishes to increase the performance level of the next generation memory solution which can easily tap into emerging new kind of memory. Currently we measure the type of storage into HDD and SSD but in upcoming future with Gen-Z progression we will have High-Bandwidth Memory (HMB), Managed DRAM and Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) ready for active adoption.
Gen-Z will not just empower the progression in the field of memory storage for computing purposes but it will create a memory semantic fabric possessing to ability to handle communication at the sub-microsecond latencies.
Gen-Z future prospects and goals
As stated earlier Gen Z aims towards creating an attached ecosystem for wide variety of computing products into a single open standard which will possess the ability to support sub-100ns load-to-use capability. Gen-Z gets backing from the prominent players in the tech industry which includes Dell, AMD, Braodcom, Samsung, HP, ARM, Micron and others. So far Intel has stayed away from Gen-Z and it is not a good sign for the success of this venture as Intel
commands a whopping 98% of the server and enterprise markets. Therefore it is necessary that Intel plays a active role in this venture which will enable Gen-Z to create new memory standards that can be compatible with the modern computing needs. Furthermore Cisco has remained aloof from the Gen-Z but it will not thwart the ambitious attempts of this venture.