- New product line is the industry's first to integrate Arm®
Neoverse® processors, inline compression, and four memory
channels.
- Structera™ A CXL near-memory accelerator
family is optimized to address high-bandwidth memory applications
such as deep learning and ML/AI on general-purpose
servers.
- Structera™ X CXL memory-expansion
controller family is the first to support up to 12 DDR4 memory
modules, enabling module recycling to reduce e-waste and maximize
server memory capacity for applications such as in-memory
databases.
SANTA
CLARA, Calif., July 30,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Marvell Technology,
Inc. (NASDAQ: MRVL), a leader in data infrastructure
semiconductor solutions, today launched the Marvell®
Structera™ product line of Compute Express
Link® (CXL®) devices that enable cloud
data center operators to overcome memory performance and scaling
challenges in general-purpose servers.
To address memory-intensive applications, data center operators
add extra servers to get higher memory bandwidth and higher memory
capacity. The compute capabilities from the added processors are
typically not utilized for these applications, making the servers
inefficient from cost and power perspectives. The CXL industry
standard addresses this challenge by enabling new architectures
that can efficiently add memory to general-purpose servers.
The Structera product line comprises two CXL device families
that are optimized for different use cases. The Structera A CXL
near-memory accelerators are a new category of devices that
integrate server-class processor cores and multiple memory channels
with CXL to address high-bandwidth memory applications such as deep
learning recommendation models (DLRM) and machine learning. The
Structera X CXL memory-expansion controllers enable terabytes of
memory to be added to general-purpose servers and address
high-capacity memory applications such as in-memory databases. The
Structera CXL device families are the industry's first to support
four memory channels, integrate inline compression and use 5nm
manufacturing processes.
In addition to the Structera A and X standard products, Marvell
develops custom CXL silicon for cloud operators that is optimized
for their unique architectures and workloads.
A New CXL Use Case: ML/AI Acceleration
The Structera A accelerators integrate 16
Arm® Neoverse® V2 cores and are
optimized to improve the performance of high memory-bandwidth
applications such as DLRM. DLRM is characterized by both sparse and
dense memory operations. Sparse operations may hit a memory wall,
in which memory bandwidth is insufficient for the available
compute. The Structera A 2504 accelerator, the first product in the
family, supports up to 200 GB/sec memory bandwidth and 4TB of
memory capacity1.
For a DLRM server using a single 64-core processor, adding a
single Structera A device would increase the number of compute
cores by 25% (64 vs 80), aggregate memory bandwidth by 50% (400
GB/sec vs 600 GB/sec), total memory by up to 4TB, and memory
bandwidth per core by 25% (6.25 GB/sec vs. 7.5 GB/sec). It would
also improve memory bandwidth power efficiency from 1W to 0.83W per
GB/sec. Adding two Structera A devices would increase compute cores
by 50%, double aggregate memory bandwidth, increase memory capacity
by up to 8TB, increase memory bandwidth per core by 50%, and
improve memory bandwidth power efficiency to 0.75W2 per
GB/sec.
The Structera X product family, by contrast, is designed for
expanding memory capacity per server to address high-capacity
memory applications. The Structera X devices are the industry's
first to support four channels of DDR4 and DDR5 memory and support
up to three DDR4 dual in-line memory modules (DIMMs) per channel
(3DPC) for maximizing memory capacity per controller and server
node. The devices are also the first CXL memory-expansion products
that can simultaneously support two server CPUs to optimize power,
space and memory utilization.
The Structera X 2404 enables operators to recycle their DDR4
DIMMs from decommissioned general-purpose servers. Millions of
functional DDR4 DIMMs are expected to become e-waste over the next
few years as operators replace existing general-purpose servers
with new ones utilizing DDR53. Using "free" DDR4 DIMMs
to expand the capacity in these servers reduces capex by thousands
of dollars per general-purpose server4. Repurposing
decommissioned DDR4 DIMMs also addresses data center sustainability
goals.
Structera products are the first in the industry
to incorporate hardware-based inline memory compression that
adheres to the Google and Meta specifications that have been
submitted to the Open Compute Project (OCP).
"Memory access is a multifaceted problem and cloud service
providers differ substantially when it comes to their goals and
deployment strategies for CXL," said Bob
Wheeler, principal analyst at Wheeler's Network. "Marvell
has developed a long-term vision for CXL that capitalizes on this
diversity of uses and will encourage hyperscalers and others to
adopt CXL to scale the so-called memory wall."
"Our new Structera CXL product line will be a game-changer in
enabling optimal resource utilization and lowering energy
consumption for scaling memory-intensive workloads in the cloud,"
said Raghib Hussain, president of
products and technologies at Marvell. "Marvell is delivering on the
promise of CXL and our commitment to customers to help them solve
their most challenging issues. CXL will continue to be a critical
technology enabler for accelerated infrastructure across our
compute, connectivity and storage portfolios."
Broad Ecosystem Support
Several companies are developing plans to support the new
Structera CXL product line.
"As CXL matures, it unlocks opportunities for innovation
through disaggregation, enabling transformative applications across
the entire data center ecosystem," said Raghu Nambiar, corporate vice president, Data
Center Ecosystems and Solutions, AMD. "Our collaboration with
Marvell is at the heart of ensuring our commitment to this
ecosystem; delivering the performance and energy efficiency needed
to deploy and scale next generation infrastructure to power the
most demanding business critical and AI applications."
"The new Marvell Structera CXL controller family combines
Marvell's compression technology and SoC expertise with the
performance and efficiency benefits of Neoverse V2 in a way that
exemplifies the pace of innovation only made possible by Arm
Neoverse," said Mohamed Awad, senior
vice president and general manager, Infrastructure Line of
Business, Arm. "It's exactly this type of optimized processing that
reduces energy consumption and enables the high-performance
infrastructure that AI demands."
Debendra Das Sharma, Chief I/O
Architect at Intel said, "Intel is delighted that Marvell is
contributing to the evolving CXL ecosystem, including the
utilization of memory expanders for capacity and bandwidth
expansion solutions. These solutions enable the reuse of DDR4 DIMMs
for memory capacity expansion while also increasing the memory
bandwidth available to the CPU cores. With support for CXL
2.0, Intel Xeon 6.0 product family is at the forefront of these
developments and appreciates the collaboration with Marvell to
bring these solutions to market."
"Marvell is an important CXL ecosystem partner to Micron, and
our work together will help advance the adoption of memory
expansion in the industry. Our collaboration on memory
interoperability will enable flexible and scalable memory resources
to match increasing processor core counts and data-intensive
workloads," said Vijay Nain, senior
director of CXL Product Management at Micron. "By driving higher
memory capacity and lower latency, data center operators can
benefit from reduced capital and operating expenses."
Product Features
Marvell Structera A 2504
- PCIe 5.0/CXL2.0 x16
- Four channels of DRAM DDR5 6400 MT/sec
- Two memory DIMMs per channel (2DPC) support
- 16 Arm Neoverse V2 cores at 3.2 GHz
- Inline LZ4 compression and decompression
- Inline AES-XTS 256-bit encryption and decryption
- Embedded hardware security module and secure boot
Marvell Structera X 2404
- PCIe 5.0/CXL2.0 1 x16 or 2 x8
- Four channels of DRAM DDR4 3200 MT/sec
- Three memory DIMMs per channel (3DPC) support
- Inline LZ4 compression and decompression
- Inline AES-XTS 256-bit encryption and decryption
- Embedded hardware security module and secure boot
Marvell Structera X 2504
- PCIe 5.0/CXL2.0 1 x16 or 2 x8
- Four channels of DRAM DDR5 6400 MT/sec
- Two memory DIMMs per channel (2DPC) support
- Inline LZ4 compression and decompression
- Inline AES-XTS 256-bit encryption and decryption
- Embedded hardware security module and secure boot
Availability
Structera A near-memory accelerators, Structera X
memory-expansion controllers and custom CXL silicon will sample in
the fourth quarter of 2024.
About Marvell
To deliver the data infrastructure
technology that connects the world, we're building solutions on the
most powerful foundation: our partnerships with our customers.
Trusted by the world's leading technology companies for over 25
years, we move, store, process and secure the world's data with
semiconductor solutions designed for our customers' current needs
and future ambitions. Through a process of deep collaboration and
transparency, we're ultimately changing the way tomorrow's
enterprise, cloud, automotive, and carrier architectures
transform—for the better.
1. Based on 512GB DIMMs.
2. 64-core processor assumed to operate at 400W and 400GB/sec.
3. Marvell and industry analyst estimates.
4. The hypothetical assumes 4TB of memory added through 32
128GB DIMMs. Pricing per 128GB DDR5 DIMMs is estimated at
$280, the approximate market price in
June 2024.
Marvell and the M logo are trademarks of Marvell or its
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property of others.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within
the meaning of the federal securities laws that involve risks and
uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include, without
limitation, any statement that may predict, forecast, indicate or
imply future events, results or achievements. Actual events,
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described in the "Risk Factors" section of our Annual Reports on
Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other documents filed
by us from time to time with the SEC. Forward-looking statements
speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not
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For further information, contact:
Kim Markle
pr@marvell.com
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