A Study on Hybrid SCM-DRAM Main Memory

Abstract

Nowadays, storage class memory (SCM) technology with its advanced characteristics is attracting a lot of attention of researchers. However, due to some negative characteristics of SCM, it still cannot replace DRAM entirely. The alternative is to make main memory a hybrid of SCM and DRAM. In so doing, we can exploit the beneficial characteristics of both DRAM and SCM. We attempt to answer the question of what the SCM and DRAM ratio should be so that the performance of the main memory can achieve the optimal performance. Through the use of a simulator, we can evaluate the effect of ratio of SCM size to DRAM size on performance of the main memory relative to current algorithms. Then, by applying these above results, this paper proposes a solution to allocate memory to multiple concurrently executing applications.