Invited talk: The perfect memory storm

The 2000 Warner Brothers blockbuster movie “The Perfect Storm” depicted how a confluence of weather conditions in October 1991 combined to produce an epic killer storm in the North Atlantic. Caught in the storm was the swordfishing boat Andrea Gail. The boat and crew did not survive. Fast forwarding to 2014, the memory industry appears to be facing a perfect storm of its own. While survival of the industry is not at stake, it should nonetheless be an interesting period for anyone involved in producing or consuming memory. The forces contributing to this perfect memory storm include an apparent end to the evolutionary DDR roadmap, ongoing process scaling issues, industry consolidation, advances in emerging memory technology, and greater end market segmentation. This presentation will begin by briefly examining each of these issues and how they impact the path forward for memory. After that, the talk will focus on how this perfect storm might actually produce opportunities for technical innovation and result in a more differentiated product mix that would better serve the individual end markets. The Hybrid Memory Cube will be discussed within this context as a relevant and timely example.