Current Embedded Memory Solutions Are Inadequate for 100G Ethernet

By SemiWiki

October 2, 2012

With an estimated 7 billion connected devices, the demand for rich content, including video, games, and mobile apps is skyrocketing. Service providers around the globe are scrambling to transform their networks to satisfy the overwhelming demand for content bandwidth. Over the next few years, they will be looking to network equipment manufacturers to provide high performance and cost effective products that will ultimately fulfill the promise of 100G Ethernet. However, network equipment manufacturers must grapple with the stark reality that aggregated line speeds (and as a result the requirements on aggregate networking processing speeds) have grown at over 25% CAGR in the past decade. This has dwarfed the growth rate of SoC memory clock speeds.

System designers can crank up processing performance with faster processer speeds, parallel architectures, and multicore processors. However, if memory performance cannot keep up, processors will have to wait for memory requests to execute, which will cause the system to stall. Memory performance must be increased. Since memory clock speeds are limited, the next logical step to boost performance is to use multiport memories, which allow multiple memory access requests to be processed in parallel within a single clock cycle.

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