- SanDisk unveils Excessive Bandwidth Flash (HBF), a NAND-based different to HBM
- HBF matches HBM bandwidth, providing 8–16x capability at a decrease price
- SanDisk is planning to determine a technical advisory board of business specialists
It definitely appears as if splitting from Western Digital has lit a fireplace below Sandisk. At its latest buyers day, the flash reminiscence specialist look the wraps off tremendous giant SSDs, with the promise of even bigger ones to return, and unveiled a brand new, cheaper DRAM different referred to as 3D Reminiscence Matrix.
On the similar occasion, Sandisk additionally unveiled its Excessive Bandwidth Flash (HBF) idea which is taking goal at HBM by augmenting it with NAND flash to cater to AI inference workloads. Sandisk’s key aims with HBF appears to be to match HBM bandwidth whereas offering 8–16 occasions the capability at an identical price.
In line with a slide that Sandisk shared, HBF combines BiCS expertise with CBA wafer bonding, permitting for environment friendly high-density stacking. The corporate has developed a proprietary stacking expertise that reportedly delivers ultra-low die warpage, making it potential to realize 16-die stacking with out main structural points.
Scaling as much as 4TB
The structure of HBF has been developed over the previous 12 months, with Sandisk incorporating enter from “major AI players” (it doesn’t title names, sadly).
The diagram within the slide reveals an HBF stack, which consists of a number of HBF core dies related through TSV (Via-Silicon Through) and micro bumps, interfacing with a logic die and PHY, which then connects to a GPU, CPU, TPU, or SoC die. The complete stack sits on an interposer atop a bundle substrate, much like the packaging design utilized in HBM.
HBF isn’t a straight drop-in substitute for HBM, nevertheless it does share the identical electrical interface, so will solely require minor protocol changes, based on Sandisk.
In one other slide, a GPU with HBM offering 192GB of whole reminiscence, is in contrast with another model combining HBF and HBM that will increase the reminiscence capability to 3TB. A completely optimized setup with solely HBF (which you’ll be able to see on the prime of the web page) can scale as much as a powerful 4TB.
Sandisk’s HBF roadmap (under) reveals how the corporate sees the expertise advancing throughout a number of generations, specializing in capability, learn bandwidth, and power effectivity. Within the first technology, HBF establishes a baseline for these metrics. By the second technology, capability is anticipated to extend by 1.5x, whereas learn bandwidth sees a 1.45x enchancment, and power effectivity barely decreases to 0.8x. By the third technology (there’s no indication of when Sandisk expects to reach at this level), HBF is projected to double in capability and skim bandwidth in comparison with its preliminary model, with power effectivity dropping additional to 0.64x.
HBF is more likely to obtain some push again from rivals like Samsung and SK Hynix who’re closely invested within the $100 billion HBM market. Painfully conscious of this, Sandisk is seeking to set up an open commonplace ecosystem, and in addition a technical advisory board made up of business specialists and key companions.
