- Sandisk enlists prime computing minds to form flash-based reminiscence various for AI
- HBF reminiscence backed by RISC and GPU leaders guarantees excessive bandwidth and big capability
- Patterson and Koduri be part of Sandisk to information flash reminiscence growth past HBM limits
Sandisk has appointed two main figures in computing to assist form the path of its high-capacity reminiscence tech for AI workloads.
Professor David Patterson and Raja Koduri have joined Sandisk’s new Technical Advisory Board to offer strategic and technical enter on Excessive Bandwidth Flash (HBF), a flash-based various to Excessive Bandwidth Reminiscence (HBM).
Patterson is credited for co-developing Diminished Instruction Set Computing (RISC) and Redundant Array of Cheap Disks (RAID), and can lead the advisory board. Koduri is thought for his management in graphics structure, having overseen GPU designs at AMD and Intel.
A long time of expertise
Collectively, they carry a long time of expertise throughout computing, reminiscence techniques, and large-scale structure.
“We’re honored to have two distinguished pc structure consultants be part of our Technical Advisory Board,” mentioned Alper Ilkbahar, Govt Vice President and Chief Know-how Officer at Sandisk.
“Their collective expertise and strategic counsel shall be instrumental in shaping HBF as the longer term reminiscence commonplace for the AI business, and affirming we not solely meet however exceed the expectations of our clients and companions.”
Patterson mentioned, “HBF exhibits the promise of taking part in an necessary function in datacenter AI by delivering unprecedented reminiscence capability at excessive bandwidth, enabling inference workloads to scale far past right this moment’s constraints. It might drive down prices of recent AI purposes which might be at present unaffordable.”
Koduri added, “HBF is about to revolutionize edge AI by equipping units with reminiscence capability and bandwidth capabilities that can help refined fashions working domestically in actual time. This development will unlock a brand new period of clever edge purposes, essentially altering how and the place AI inference is carried out.”
HBF is designed to match the bandwidth of HBM whereas providing as much as 8 occasions the capability at an identical price.
Constructed with BiCS flash, CBA wafer bonding, and proprietary stacking that permits 16 dies per package deal, HBF presents a brand new technique to increase GPU reminiscence with out relying fully on costly DRAM.
Whereas not a direct substitute for HBM, HBF shares the identical electrical interface and solely requires minimal protocol adjustments.
Sandisk beforehand demonstrated how an AI GPU utilizing solely HBM would possibly help 192GB of reminiscence, however by combining it with HBF, that determine might attain 3TB.
In a configuration utilizing solely HBF, reminiscence capability might scale as much as 4TB.
The know-how was first revealed at Sandisk’s Future FWD 2025 investor occasion again in February 2025, alongside its roadmap for future HBF generations.
These updates present will increase in capability and bandwidth over time, with some tradeoffs in power effectivity.
By forming an advisory board and looking for open commonplace growth, Sandisk is attempting to keep away from locking the market into proprietary options.
This will assist it acquire traction towards rivals like Samsung and SK Hynix that are each closely invested within the HBM house.
