Optically Connected Memory for Disaggregated Data Centers
Year: 2020
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Recent advances in integrated photonics enable the implementation of reconfigurable, high-bandwidth, and low energy-per-bit interconnects in next-generation data centers. We propose and evaluate an Optically Connected Memory (OCM) architecture that disaggregates the main memory from the computation nodes in data centers. OCM is based on micro-ring resonators (MRRs), and it does not require any modification to the DRAM memory modules. We calculate energy consumption from real photonic devices and integrate them into a system simulator to evaluate performance. Our results show that (1) OCM is capable of interconnecting four DDR4 memory channels to a computing node using two fibers with 1.07 pJ energy-per-bit consumption and (2) OCM performs up to 5.5x faster than a disaggregated memory with 40G PCIe NIC connectors to computing nodes.
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funders: U.S. Department of Energy, American Cancer Society, Small Business Innovation Research, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Advanced Scientific Computing Research
OpenAlex ID: W3080546329