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SMART Modular Technologies, Inc. Announces New Family of Add-In Cards

SMART Modular Technologies, Inc. ("SMART"), a division of SGH (Nasdaq: SGH) and a global leader in memory solutions, solid-state drives, and advanced memory, has introduced its latest family of Add-In Cards (AICs) that incorporate the Compute Express Link (CXL) standard and support industry standard DDR5 DIMMs. These AICs are the first high-density DIMM AICs to utilize the CXL protocol. The SMART 4-DIMM and 8-DIMM products allow server and data center architects to add up to 4 TB of memory in a familiar, easy-to-deploy form factor.

"The market for CXL memory components for data center applications is projected to grow rapidly, with initial production shipments expected in late 2024 and exceeding $2 billion by 2026. Ultimately, CXL attach rates in the server market are anticipated to reach 30%, encompassing both expansion and pooling use cases," stated Mike Howard, vice president of DRAM and memory markets at TechInsights. "The CXL protocol is a significant advancement towards achieving industry standard memory disaggregation and sharing, which will greatly enhance memory deployment in the future," added Andy Mills, senior director of advanced product development at SMART Modular.

The SMART 4-DIMM and 8-DIMM AICs are equipped with advanced CXL controllers that eliminate memory bandwidth bottlenecks and capacity constraints for compute-intensive workloads in AI, HPC, and ML applications. These applications demand larger amounts of high-speed memory that current servers cannot accommodate, leading the industry to turn to CXL-based solutions for more efficient memory expansion.

Technical Specifications

About SMART's 4-DIMM and 8-DIMM DDR5 AICs:

  • Available in type 3 PCIe Gen 5 Full Height, Half Length (FHHL) PCIe form factor.
  • The 4-DIMM AIC (CXA-4F1W) accommodates four DDR5 RDIMMs with a maximum of 2 TB of memory capacity, while the 8-DIMM AIC (CXA-8F2W) accommodates eight DDR5 RDIMMs with a maximum of 4 TB of memory capacity.
  • The 4-DIMM AIC uses a single CXL controller implementing one x16 CXL port, while the 8-DIMM AIC uses two CXL controllers to implement two x8 ports, resulting in a total bandwidth of 64 GB/s.
  • Both AICs offer enhanced security features and support "Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability" (RAS) features.

For more information on SMART's products using the CXL standard, visit the CMM/CXL family page. SMART is also offering samples to OEMs upon request. These new CXL-based AIC products complement SMART's ZDIMM line of DRAM as ideal solutions for demanding memory design-in applications.