SK Hynix puts 100-plus mini-cores in each SSD controller
Vice president Koo In-je said at the International SoC Design Conference that each H-TPU takes 4% of a CPU core's area and about 2.5% of its power.
SK Hynix has detailed a processor architecture that places more than 100 small processors inside each SSD controller, according to techradar.com. Vice president Koo In-je presented the design, called H-TPU (Hynix Transaction Processing Unit), at the International SoC Design Conference.
Each H-TPU reportedly occupies 4% of the area of a general-purpose CPU core and consumes about 2.5% of its power. The architecture uses a four-stage pipeline with sequential execution, and processors that are not needed are placed into idle mode per request.
Conventional CPU cores remain responsible for error recovery, exception management and storage policy decisions, according to the design outlined at the conference.
SK Hynix plans to use H-TPUs in upcoming enterprise SSD controllers and in its Storage Next architecture, and to apply the technology to High Bandwidth Flash. Storage Next targets AI data requests of 512 bytes or less, one-eighth of the conventional 4KB unit.
Roadmap and open questions
The company also intends to extend H-TPUs to its AIN P, AIN B and AIN D product families. No date has been disclosed for the technology reaching commercial products, and its effects on overall SSD performance have not been quantified.
High Bandwidth Flash is expected to reach the market next year, according to the article, while future PCIe 6.0, 7.0 and 8.0 generations are expected to raise transfer speeds and controller demands.
Quick answers
What is SK Hynix's H-TPU?
It is an architecture that places more than 100 small processors in an SSD controller. Each reportedly takes 4% of the area and about 2.5% of the power of a general-purpose CPU core.
When will H-TPUs reach commercial products?
No date has been disclosed. SK Hynix plans to use them in upcoming enterprise SSD controllers, its Storage Next architecture and High Bandwidth Flash.
What do the conventional CPU cores still do?
They handle error recovery, exception management and storage policy decisions.