Samsung and SK hynix are pushing to commercialize Compute Express Link (CXL) memory for AI servers as demand for memory capacity strains existing system designs.

amsung’s CMM-D and SK hynix’s CMM-DDR5 are CXL memory modules that expand memory over PCI Express (PCIe).

Unlike standard DDR5 dual inline memory modules (DIMMs) tied directly to central processing unit (CPU) channels, they can also enable memory pooling.

SK hynix, a South Korean memory chipmaker, showed a 256GB second-generation CMM-DDR5 sample at HPE Discover in Las Vegas in June.

Samsung said it is preparing to begin production of its next CMM-D module by year-end, though that could slip into 2027.

Platform support has advanced. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) EPYC Genoa supports CXL Type-3 memory, and Intel added official Type-3 support with 5th Gen Xeon Emerald Rapids.

In company tests, Samsung said a 1TB CXL memory pool reached about 92% of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM)-level inference performance, while SK hynix researchers reported up to a 35.7% throughput gain.

Broader deployment still depends on server qualification and Linux memory-tiering software that is still evolving.

🔗 Source: The Korea Herald

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