The dynamic associative access memory chip and its application to SIMD processing and full-text database retrieval

Abstract

Dynamic Associative Access Memory (DAAM) chips are processor-in-memory chips wherein a large number of small processing elements are put in a DRAM's sense amps. Thousands of these chips will be mounted on "memory boards" in "TONY" full-text database servers. This paper shows that multibank memory eliminates DRAM latency, and a one-bit ALU that can be made into an associative processor, with the addition of one gate. This paper shows how this unconventional technology offers nearly three orders of magnitude better cost performance than a Pentium microprocessor, nearly 1,000 MIPs per dollar of chip cost for the DAAM compared to about 1 MIPs per dollar of chip cost for the Pentium. This paper shows that a TONY server system using this chip will handle over a million on-line users, more than two orders of magnitude more cost-effective than the best current database machines, and a TONY server stores a page of text for approximately five cents (the cost of duplicating the printed page).