Data Center Solutions

Spansion® EcoRAM™ Memory Helps Solve Data Center Energy Crisis

According to recent reports from Dr. Jonathan Koomey, an expert in energy efficiency and a Consulting Professor at Stanford University, data centers are a growing consumer of electricity. Between 2000 and 2005, data center energy consumption doubled, from a total of 71 billion kilowatt hours per year (kWh/yr) to over 150 billion kWh/yr. If current trends persist, data center electricity use will continue to grow at a rapid pace.

Internet data center managers have a new memory solution to help fight growing energy demands, Spansion® EcoRAM™ memory with the Virident’s GreenGateway™ solution. By replacing portions of power-hungry DRAM with Spansion EcoRAM, managers can cut energy consumption by up to 75% while reducing total cost of ownership.

Spansion EcoRAM Advantages over other Memory Options

Internet data center servers use DRAM in Dual-in-line Memory Modules (DIMMs) to provide virtually instantaneous access to data. DRAM offers fast access to data, but consumes tremendous amounts of power. In addition, the amount of DRAM in a single server is limited due to energy constraints at the DIMM level and a limited number of DIMM sockets, requiring IT managers to buy more and more servers to meet the need for instant access to data with increased capacity.

Due to the requirement for high-performance random access to provide virtually instantaneous data access, Internet data center servers cannot utilize NAND Flash memory, which features 1/800th the random read performance of DRAM. Hard disk drives, even Solid State Disks, do not support the random read performance required.

Traditional NOR Flash memory in general is moving ahead of DRAM to smaller process nodes and lower power consumption, but features slower write performance and lower density than required.

Spansion EcoRAM transcends available memory alternatives, with significant potential benefits for data center solutions:

• Read performance to meet the requirements for fast random access
• 1/8 the energy consumption of DRAM
• 10x the reliability compared to DRAM
• Die densities two-to-four times greater than conventional floating gate NOR
• Write performance two-to-ten times greater than that of traditional NOR Flash memory

With power consumption a fraction of DRAM, Spansion EcoRAM takes advantage of the fast read and write speeds of the MirrorBit Eclipse architecture, and enables eight times more capacity per DIMM, which creates the potential for IT managers to replace four conventional DRAM-based servers with only one Spansion EcoRAM-based server.