Amber Huffman, senior principal engineer and NVM Express Workgroup chair, has given a talk centred around NVM Express (NVMe). NVMe is the standardised high-performance host controller interface for PCI Express-based SSDs with an architecture intended for non-volatile memory scaling from the enterprise to the client. While ready to offer performance gains with the present generation of NV memory SSDs based on NAND, it has also been designed with the next-generation NV memory in mind. Its architecture focuses on latency, parallelism and performance, and the details have been well documented.

NVMe is now supported by 90+ leading companies and a 30-company promoter group. The first products began shipping in 2014. The driving force for NVMe acceptance is its ability to move NV memory from the legacy of the rotating disc and serial operation to parallel operation. Standardisation of the register, feature and command sets is a means of moving from proprietary to product interoperability.

Flash memory multilevel cell (MLC) NAND provides the primary non-volatile part of the present proof of performance of NVMe-based designs, which is impressive. The appearance of emerging NV memories would appear to hold the key to a dramatic factor of 4x improvement in future performance. However, the saving grace is NVMe has been designed to be memory independent or "agnostic" to the memory technology that eventually wins the NV emerging technology race.

It is hoped that this Tech Talk would provide some insight into Intel's viewpoint as to which of the competing technologies might win the emerging NV memory race and, more importantly, the timing of its emergence, even though, as stated earlier, the NVMe controller has been designed on a "don't care" basis in that respect.

Huffman's list of emerging memory types included the usual suspects with a brief description of the mechanisms involved. The list included as mechanisms: phase change, spin polarised electrons, electro-chemistry, oxidation-reduction, and oxygen vacancy drift diffusion and barrier modulation.

By: DocMemory
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