SoylentNews

takyon writes:

The Square Kilometer Array will use Micron's Hybrid Memory Cube, a high-bandwidth DRAM replacement:

Once combined with other sites, [the Square Kilometer Array] would be capable of peering back further in time than any other Earth-based observatory. As with most advanced science projects, SKA presents unprecedented data processing challenges. With daily data volumes reaching 1 exabyte, "The data volume is becoming overwhelming," astronomer Simon Ratcliffe noted during a webcast this week.

In response, Micron Technology Inc. has come up with a processing platform for handling the growing data bottleneck called the Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC). The memory specialist combined its fast logic process technology with new DRAM designs to boost badly needed bandwidth in its high-density memory system.

[...] The radio telescope array uses a front-end processor to convert faint analog radio signals to digital. Those signals are then processed using FPGAs. Memory resources needed to make sense of all that data can be distributed using relatively simple algorithms, according to Francois Kapp, a systems engineer at SKA South Africa. The challenge, Kapp noted, is operating the array around the clock along with the "increasing depth and width of memory" requirements. "You can't just add more memory to increase the bandwidth, " he noted, especially as FPGAs move to faster interfaces.

Original Submission