OCP 2023 Announcements From JEDEC, OCP Foundation, Kioxia And Phison

Although I wasn’t able to physically attend the Open Compute Project (OCP) Summit I did get information about several storage and memory related developments at the show. Let’s look into these developments on Chiplets, enhanced Ethernet systems, device level security auditing, data center SSDs and SSD and domain specific processor controllers.

The OCP Foundation and JEDEC Solid State Technology Association reported a joint development for automated System in Package (SiP) design and build using Chiplets. This included a Chiplet Description Schema (CDXML) specification which enables standardized Chiplet part descriptions for use with modern EDA tools and allows chiplet builders to provide electronically readable descriptions to their customers. CDML is being integrated into JEDEC JEP30. OCP is granting a compensation free and non-exclusive right to incorporate CDXML into JEP30.

The electronically readable descriptions for chiplets include: Thermal, Physical/Mechanical, Behavioral, Power/Power and Signal Integrity, Electrical test and security information. These new standards are expected to help establish an Open Chiplet economy. The objective is to build an Open Chiplet economy as illustrated below.

The OCP Foundation and the Ultra Ethernet Consortium announced an alliance to help deliver data center equipment that is optimized for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) applications. This includes solving memory size and AI cluster back-end fabric challenges posed by large language models (LLMs). This will help fast track the integration of UCE-inspired Ethernet enhancements into complete systems. This will enable OCP to support its multi-vendor supply chain to deliver on these enhanced Ethernet systems.

This enables integration of specialized silicon systems developed using Chiplets and large memory pools created with CXL and various memory appliances. The OCP Foundation also announced its Security Appraisal Framework and Enablement (S.A.F.E.) Program to enable standardized device specific security auditing. This is meant to reduce the cost, decrease redundancy and provide common security conformance to device customers.

Kioxia also participated in the OCP Summit highlighting its data center and enterprise SSD portfolio. In particular the company talked about their XD7P data center NVMe SSDs as shown below as well as Kioxia’s LD2-L NVMe SSD (in a EDSFF E1.L 9.5mm form factor) and CD8P Data Center PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs (in EDSFF E3.5 and 2.5-inch (U.2) 15mm thickness form factors).

These products also work with Software-Enabled Flash (SEF) data management to control data placement, provide workload isolation, reduce write amplification and optimized latency. This allows advanced queueing, I/O prioritization and customized protocols with open source APIs and SDKs.

Phison introduced high-speed signal enhanced IC products at the OCP Summit to expand its PCIe 5.0 and CXL 2.0 ecosystem for AI-driven data centers. These developments include PCIe 5.0 and CXL 2.0 compatible redriver and retimer data signal conditioning IC products. These products are intended for NAND flash products for AI applications, including machine learning (ML). The company currently has PCIe 4.0 and 5.0 products in mass production and PCIe 6.0 products in design.

Phison’s PS7201 and PS7202 retimer solutions are designed to meet the growing demand for data performance, and follow industry standard retimer footprints. In addition to working with NAND flash, these solutions work with accelerator technologies including GPU, CPU, FPGA, ASIC and DPUs. They boost a 5ns latency with pin-to-pin compatibility with competing products. These products are certified by PCI-SIG. Phison also offers it auto tuning tool PHiTUNE for its retimers. This tool enables development engineers to collect signal data and determine the best parameters for signal optimization within 30 minutes.

The OCP Summit introduced new Chiplet enablement, advanced Ethernet and device security auditing. Kioxia highlighted their data center SSD products and Phison announced new controller technology for PCIe 5.0 and CXL 2.0 devices.