Intel's Braidwood: Death to SSDs?

Contents

Executive Summary

What is Braidwood?

What is ONFi?

Braidwood Shown at June Computex

Key Underlying Technologies

Elements of a Standard HDD

Caches and Memory Performance

NAND’s Nonvolatile Advantage

Problems with NAND

NAND in the Memory Hierarchy

Memory Hierarchy

Hybrid HDDs

Intel’s Robson or Turbo Memory

Turbo Memory: What Went Wrong?

Windows 7 Enhancements Incremental

The Braidwood Approach

Why Braidwood Makes Sense when SSDs Don’t

Braidwood vs. SSD Bandwidth

Benefits of a NAND Layer

Power Consumption

Access Speed

Faster Boot-Up

Speedy Program Launch

Reliability

Shock Tolerance

Summing Up the Advantages

Software Support is Required

Why a Cache Needs Software Support

Pinning and The “Instant-On” Myth

Legacy Issues

Alternatives to Braidwood

Conventional Architecture (No NAND)

Strengths

Weaknesses

Solid State Drives

Strengths

Weaknesses

Increased DRAM Main Memory

Strengths

Weaknesses

Cost Implications of Braidwood

How NAND Costs will Add to PC Costs

Cost vs. Benefits of Each Approach

Consumer Reaction to Braidwood’s Cost

Braidwood’s Future

A Forecast for Braidwood Shipments

Revenue Forecast

Braidwood’s Impact on the NAND Market

Key NAND Suppliers Face Trouble

How Braidwood will Impact the DRAM Market

Summary

Methodology

Figures

Tables

Author

Jim Handy

Figure 1. ONFi NAND Flash Module

Figure 2. Micro-Star International Motherboard with Braidwood ONFi Socket (arrows). 4

Figure 3. Elements of a Hard Disk Drive

Figure 4. NAND Prices Have Dropped Significantly below DRAM's

Figure 5. Storage Hierarchy in a Typical Computing System

Figure 6. Pyramid Diagram of NAND in the Memory Hierarchy

Figure 7. Cost and Performance of Levels in the Memory Hierarchy

Figure 8. Intel's Turbo Memory

Figure 9. Latency of Various Media for 4KB Random Reads

Figure 10. Relative Significance of System Overhead

Figure 11. PC Power Savings from Adding a NAND Layer

Figure 12. Services loaded during a Typical PC Bootstrap of Windows XP

Figure 13. NAND Price per Gigabyte Forecast

Figure 14. ONFi Module for Braidwood Unit Shipment Forecast

Figure 15. Optimistic/Pessimistic Revenue Forecasts for NAND Consumption in PCs.. Figure 16. Braidwood Share of Total NAND Revenues

Figure 17. DRAM Gigabyte Growth Historically Averages 56%

Figure 18. DRAM Gigabyte Growth Will Slow With Braidwood Introduction

Figure 19. DRAM Historical Revenues

Figure 20. DRAM Revenues Likely to Decline after Braidwood Introduction

Table 1. Breakdown of Latency in Different Media

Table 2. Summary of Braidwood’s Features

Table 3. Cost and Benefits of Braidwood and Its Alternatives

Table 4. A Forecast for Braidwood Adoption and Related ONFi Module Shipments

Table 5. Optimistic & Pessimistic Forecasts of Braidwood Average Capacity and

Revenues