一种降低DRAM系统刷新功耗的混合主存设计

A Hybrid Main Memory Architecture Design for Reducing DRAM System Refresh Power

传统计算机体系结构中主存由动态随机存取存储器(DRAM)构成,而DRAM的刷新功耗随容量的增大而急剧增大.为应对这一问题,业界开始关注新型非易失性存储器(NVM).NVM具有掉电后数据不会丢失、不需刷新的优势,然而它们仍然处于研究阶段,单颗芯片的容量和价格不足以媲美DRAM,距离大批量投入商用仍有一段距离,因此,DRAM和NVM的新型混合主存结构被认为是下一代主存.本文提出一种SignificanceAware Pages Allocation(SA-PA)混合主存设计方案,通过将关键页分配到DRAM中,非关键页分配到相变存储器(PCM)中,采用DRAM和PCM并行结构,并采用Reset-Speed技术提高PCM的写速度,从而实现在不过分降低系统性能的前提下降低系统功耗的目的.结果表明,本文提出的SA-PA混合主存结构使得系统功耗平均下降25.78%,而系统性能仅下降1.34%.

In traditional computer architecture,main memory consists of Dynamic Random Access Memory（DRAM）,but DRAM refresh power consumption increases rapidly with increasing capacity.To address this problem,the industry began to focus on the novel non-volatile memory（NVM）.NVM have advantages of data won＇t lost after power down and no refresh,but they are still in the research stage,and single-chip capacity and expensive price isn＇t comparable to DRAM,so there is some time to be commercially used in large quantities,therefore,the novel hybrid DRAM and NVM architecture is considering as the next generation main memory.This paper presents a Significance-Aware Pages Allocation（SA-PA）hybrid main memory architecture design.With DRAM and PCM parallel structure,SA-PA allocates the critical pages in DRAM,and the non-critical pages in PCM.Furthermore,Reset-Speed technology is used in SA-PA for improving write speed of PCM.Simulation results show that,proposed SA-PA hybrid main memory architecture reduce system power consumption by an average 25.78%,while performance of the system fell only by 1.34%.