Rambus Inc.

International Business Machines Corporation

Lenovo (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Cortina Systems Corporation

Michael Raymond Miller

Thomas Vogelsang

Steven Cameron Woo

Collins Williams

John Eric Linstadt

Paul Andrew Wormsbecher

Aws Shallal

Stephen Horn

Stephen Magee

Dennis Albert Doidge

Frederick Abbott Ware

Brian Michael Kerrigan

Peter A Smith

Michael D French

Aaron Roger Cox

Vinod Kamath

Howard Victor Mahaney, Jr

Karl Klaus Dittus

Jason E Minyard

Gregory Joseph McKnight

William J Grady

Fred Allison Bower, Iii

Eric Alan Eckberg

Jason Aaron Matteson

Arash Farhoodfar

Kenneth Lee Wright

Mark Edward Steinke

Martin Joseph Crippen

David Frederick Champion

Jonas R Weiss

Dongyun Lee

Taeksang Song

Juan-Carlos Calderon

Mark Michael Schaffer

Evan Lawrence Erickson

Jean-Michel Caia

Derek Ian Schmidt

James Scott Womble

Michael A Boraas

Jamil A Wakil

John Geoffrey Gundlach

Matthew Scott Henry

Arun Zarabi

Robert Mark Lindsay

Michael Patrick Muhlada

Christopher Randall Starr

John Patrick McCardle, Ii

An integrated circuit (IC) memory device includes an array of storage cells configured into multiple banks. Interface circuitry receives refresh commands from a host memory controller to refresh the multiple banks for a first refresh mode. On-die refresh control circuitry selectively generates local refresh commands to refresh the multiple banks in cooperation with the host memory controller during a designated hidden refresh interval in a second refresh mode. Mode register circuitry stores a value indicating whether the on-die refresh control circuitry is enabled for use during the second refresh mode. The interface circuitry includes backchannel control circuitry to transmit a corrective action control signal during operation in the second refresh mode.

Memory device having hidden refresh

A high-capacity cache memory is implemented by multiple heterogenous DRAM dies, including a dedicated tag-storage DRAM die architected for low-latency tag-address retrieval and thus rapid hit/miss determination, and one or more capacity-optimized cache-line DRAM dies that render a net cache-line storage capacity orders of magnitude beyond that of state-of-the art SRAM cache implementations. The tag-storage die serves double-duty in some implementations, yielding rapid tag hit/miss determination for cache-line read/write requests while also serving as a high-capacity snoop-filter in a memory-sharing multiprocessor environment.

DRAM cache with stacked, heterogenous tag and data dies

A memory system includes two or more memory controllers capable of accessing the same dynamic, random-access memory (DRAM), one controller having access to the DRAM or a subset of the DRAM at a time. Different subsets of the DRAM are supported with different refresh-control circuitry, including respective refresh-address counters. Whichever controller has access to a given subset of the DRAM issues refresh requests to the corresponding refresh-address counter. Counters are synchronized before control of a given subset of the DRAM is transferred between controllers to avoid a loss of stored data.

Multi-modal refresh of dynamic, random-access memory

Disclosed is a memory system including a memory component having at least one tag row and at least one data row and multiple ways to hold a data group as a cache-line or cache-block. The memory system includes a memory controller that is connectable to the memory component to implement a cache and operable with the memory controller and the memory component in each of a plurality of operating modes including a first and second operating mode having differing addressing and timing requirements for accessing the data group. The first operating mode having placement of each of at least two ways of a data group in differing rows in the memory component, with tag access and data access not overlapped. The second operating mode having placement of all ways of a data group in a same row in the memory component, with tag access and data access overlapped.

System application of DRAM component with cache mode

An interconnected stack of one or more Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) die has a base logic die and one or more custom logic or processor die. The processor logic die snoops commands sent to and through the stack. In particular, the processor logic die may snoop mode setting commands (e.g., mode register set—MRS commands). At least one mode setting command that is ignored by the DRAM in the stack is used to communicate a command to the processor logic die. In response the processor logic die may prevent commands, addresses, and data from reaching the DRAM die(s). This enables the processor logic die to send commands/addresses and communicate data with the DRAM die(s). While being able to send commands/addresses and communicate data with the DRAM die(s), the processor logic die may execute software using the DRAM die(s) for program and/or data storage and retrieval.

Stacked device communication

Data and error correction information may involve accessing multiple data channels (e.g., 8) and one error detection and correction channel concurrently. This technique requires a total of N+1 row requests for each access, where N is the number of data channels (e.g., 8 data row accesses and 1 error detection and correction row access equals 9 row accesses.) A single (or at least less than N) data channel row may be accessed concurrently with a single error detection and correction row. This reduces the number of row requests to two (2)—one for the data and one for the error detection and correction information. Because, row requests consume power, reducing the number of row requests is more power efficient.

Energy efficient storage of error-correction-detection information

A multi-processor device is disclosed. The multi-processor device includes interface circuitry to receive requests from at least one host device. A primary processor is coupled to the interface circuitry to process the requests in the absence of a failure event associated with the primary processor. A secondary processor processes operations on behalf of the primary processor and selectively receives the requests from the interface circuitry based on detection of the failure event associated with the primary processor.

Multi-processor device with external interface failover

A device includes a memory controller and a cache memory coupled to the memory controller. The cache memory has a first set of cache lines associated with a first memory block and comprising a first plurality of cache storage locations, as well as a second set of cache lines associated with a second memory block and comprising a second plurality of cache storage locations. A first location of the second plurality of cache storage locations comprises cache tag data for both the first set of cache lines and the second set of cache lines.

Tags and data for caches

An interconnected stack of one or more Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) die also has one or more custom logic, controller, or processor die. The custom die(s) of the stack include direct channel interfaces that allow direct access to memory regions on one or more DRAMs in the stack. The direct channels are time-division multiplexed such that each DRAM die is associated with a time slot on a direct channel. The custom die configures a first DRAM die to read a block of data and transmit it via the direct channel using a time slot that is assigned to a second DRAM die. The custom die also configures the second memory device to receive the first block of data in its assigned time slot and write the block of data.

Block copy

A control component implements pipelined data processing operations in either of two timing domains bridged by a domain-crossing circuit according to one or more configuration signals that indicate relative clock frequencies of the two domain and/or otherwise indicate which of the two timing domains will complete the data processing operations with lowest latency.

Domain-selective control component

Disclosed is a dynamic random access memory that has columns, data rows, tag rows and comparators. Each comparator compares address bits and tag information bits from the tag rows to determine a cache hit and generate address bits to access data information in the DRAM as a multiway set associative cache.

Storage and access of data and tags in a multi-way set associative cache

A stacked processor-plus-memory device includes a processing die with an array of processing elements of an artificial neural network. Each processing element multiplies a first operand—e.g. a weight—by a second operand to produce a partial result to a subsequent processing element. To prepare for these computations, a sequencer loads the weights into the processing elements as a sequence of operands that step through the processing elements, each operand stored in the corresponding processing element. The operands can be sequenced directly from memory to the processing elements or can be stored first in cache. The processing elements include streaming logic that disregards interruptions in the stream of operands.

Methods and circuits for streaming data to processing elements in stacked processor-plus-memory architecture

Growing community of inventors

Raleigh, NC, United States of America

Michael Raymond Miller