Micron Introduces Persistent Memory Solution That Combines DRAM Performance With NAND Flash Reliability to Address Big Data Challenges

BOISE, Idaho, Nov. 10, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Micron Technology, Inc., (Nasdaq:MU) announces the production of 8GB DDR4 NVDIMM, the company’s first commercially available solution in the persistent memory category. Persistent memory delivers a unique balance of latency, bandwidth, capacity and cost, delivering ultra-fast DRAM-like access to critical data and allowing system designers to better manage overall costs. With persistent memory, system architects are no longer forced to sacrifice latency and bandwidth when accessing critical data that must be preserved.

As data centers evolve to handle the massively growing influx of data, the cost of moving data and storing it away from the CPU becomes increasingly prohibitive, creating the need for a new generation of faster, more responsive solutions. Persistent memory, a new addition to the memory hierarchy, allows greater flexibility in data management by providing non-volatile, low latency memory closer to the processor. With NVDIMM technology, Micron delivers a powerful persistent memory solution capable of meeting many of today’s biggest computing challenges.

Micron’s NVDIMM begins to address some of the difficult architectural challenges facing CIOs today, and is ideal for applications such as big data analytics, storage appliances, RAID cache, In-Memory Databases and On Line Transaction Processing. Traditional memory architectures force system architects to sacrifice latency or bandwidth needed to access the critical data for these applications, and as a result, performance is often limited by I/O bottlenecks. Micron’s NVDIMM solutions deliver architectures suited to meet the demands of applications that require high performance coupled with frequent access to large data sets while being sensitive to down time. In the event of a power failure or system crash, Micron’s NVDIMM solution provides an onboard controller that safely transfers data stored in DRAM to the onboard non-volatile memory, thereby preserving the data that would otherwise be lost.

“Micron is delivering on the promise of persistent memory with a solution that gives system architects a new approach for designing systems with better performance, reduced energy usage and improved total cost of ownership,” said Tom Eby, vice president for Micron’s compute and networking business unit. “With NVDIMM, we have a powerful solution that is available today. We’re also leading the way on future persistent memory development by spearheading R&D efforts on promising new technologies such as 3D XPoint™ memory, which will be available in 2016 and beyond.”

Persistent Memory: A New Architecture for the New Data Age

Micron’s NVDIMM technology is a non-volatile solution that combines NAND flash reliability, DRAM performance and an optional power source into a single memory subsystem, delivering a powerful solution that ensures data stored in memory is protected against power loss. By placing non-volatile memory on the DRAM bus, this new architecture allows customers to store data close to the processor and significantly optimize data movement by delivering faster access to variables stored in DRAM.

“Persistent memory is a critical new technology to move computing forward. The amount of information that can be found in data produced by today’s organizations requires a platform with the performance abilities to more efficiently store, manage and analyze large data sets frequently and quickly,” said Greg Wong, founder and principal analyst at Forward Insights. “Micron’s NVDIMM technology is a positive step in this direction, delivering a solution that fills a gap in the current memory hierarchy right now.”

Additional Resources:

Follow us online! Take part in Micron’s social conversations where we’re talking all things storage and memory: