The increasing possibility of memory errors

TIM

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The increasing possibility of memory errors

Two trends increase the likelihood of memory errors in servers: expanding memory capacity and increasing storage density.

Software vendors are developing increasingly complex and memory-intensive applications. This drives operating systems to address more memory, which causes manufacturers to expand the memory capacity of the servers. For example, while the HP ProLiant DL585 G2 of 2007 could support a maximum of 128 GB, some of the latest servers now support up to 256 GB of memory. As manufacturers continue to expand the memory capacity of servers, the possibility of memory errors likewise increases.

Two parameters of DRAM are inextricably tied together—the storage density of the DRAM chips and the operating voltage of the memory system. As the size of memory cells decreases, both DRAM storage density and the memory-cell voltage sensitivity increase. Initially, industry-standard DIMMs operated at 5 volts. However, due to improvements in DRAM storage density, the operating voltage decreased first to 3.3 V, then 2.5 V, and then 1.8 V to allow memory to run faster and consume less power. Because memory storage density is increasing and operating voltage is shrinking, there is a higher probability that an error may occur. Whenever a data bit is misinterpreted and not corrected, the error can cause an application to crash. The only true protection from memory errors is to use some sort of memory detection or correction protocol. Some protocols can only detect errors, while others can both detect and correct memory problems, seamlessly.

Information porvided by Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.