Micron's Hybrid Memory Cube Wins The Linley Group Analysts' Choice Award

The Analysts' Choice Awards recognize the top microprocessor-related products of 2011 in several major categories, including embedded, mobile, PC, server, design IP and related technologies. For the Best Technology Award, The Linley Group's team of technology analysts considered merits of the leading, forward-looking technologies that were announced during 2011.

Our analysts are deeply familiar with processor products and technology, having conducted extensive research in order to deliver the firm's popular publications and reports, said Linley Gwennap, founder and principal analyst at The Linley Group. We chose the winners on the basis of their performance, power, features and cost, as appropriate for their target applications.

Hybrid Memory Cubes promise greater density, lower latency, higher bandwidth, and better power efficiency per bit compared with conventional memories, said Tom R. Halfhill, a senior analyst at The Linley Group. Early benchmarks show a memory cube blasting data 12 times faster than DDR3-1333 SDRAM while using only about 10 percent of the power.

HMC technology uses advanced through-silicon vias (TSVs) — vertical conduits that electrically connect a stack of individual chips — to combine high-performance logic with Micron's state-of-the-art DRAM. HMC delivers bandwidth and efficiencies a leap beyond current device capabilities. HMC prototypes, for example, clock in with bandwidth of 128 gigabytes per second (GB/s). By comparison, current state-of-the-art devices deliver 12.8 GB/s. HMC also requires 70 percent less energy to transfer data while offering a small form factor— just 10 percent of the footprint of conventional memory.

HMC will enable a new generation of performance in applications ranging from large-scale networking and high-performance computing, to industrial automation and, eventually, consumer products.
With so many other great innovations out there, we're especially honored to receive this prestigious award from The Linley Group. This world-class recognition is a reflection on the team that is working to match processors with memory and break down the memory wall by bringing the Hybrid Memory Cube to the market, said Brian Shirley, vice president for Micron's DRAM Solutions Group. Special thanks to the Micron engineers who've designed this breakthrough architecture, and to our esteemed colleagues in the industry who are helping to expedite the specifications and manufacturing for this revolutionary technology.

The Linley Group has initiated the awards program to honor excellence in processor design and innovation and to recognize the processor products it believes will have the greatest impact on next-generation system design. The Linley Group publishes Microprocessor Report, the industry's leading newsletter, and other technology reports.