SNIA Special Interest Group Formed to Accelerate Awareness and Adoption of Non-Volatile DIMM (NVDIMM) in the Marketplace

SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - Jan 27, 2014) - Twelve leading Non-Volatile DIMM (NVDIMM) vendors have formed the NVDIMM Special Interest Group (NVDIMM SIG) to accelerate awareness and adoption of this technology in the marketplace. The NVDIMM SIG is being organized as an open community under the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Solid State Storage Initiative (www.snia.org/forums/sssi), which will provide logistical and promotional support for the SIG, and includes vendors AgigA Tech¹, IDT, Inphi, Intel, Micron, Microsoft Corporation, Netlist¹, Pericom¹, Samsung, SK Hynix, SMART Modular Technologies, and Viking Technology. The SIG's first public activity will take place at a Storage Industry Summit focused on NVM Technology on January 28, 2014 during the SNIA Annual Members' Symposium in San Jose, CA.

A Non-Volatile Dual In-line Memory Module (NVDIMM) is a computer memory module that retains data in the event of an unexpected power loss, planned shutdown or other system failure. The NVDIMM module combines multiple memory technologies (DRAM and flash), plus logic and an independent power source to ensure data protection or memory persistence. NVDIMMs can also be used to improve application performance, data security and to enhance both SSD endurance and reliability.

"The emergence of Solid State Storage and Non-Volatile Memory technologies represents perhaps the most profound discontinuity the storage industry has seen, driving fundamental changes in computer and storage system architectures. SNIA has addressed this with a number of standards and education initiatives," said David Dale, SNIA Chairman. "We welcome and support the creation of the NVDIMM SIG to help the industry along the path to Storage Class Memory."

The NVDIMM SIG will:

• Provide education on how system vendors can "design-in" NVDIMMs.
• Communicate existing industry standards, and areas for vendor differentiation. 
• Help technology and solution vendors whose products integrate NVDIMMs to communicate their benefits and value to the greater market. 
• Develop vendor-agnostic user perspective case studies, best practices, and vertical industry requirements to help both end user customers and vendors understand how products and solutions can meet performance, cost, and efficiency goals.

"As NVDIMM adoption begins to ramp in the marketplace, there is a need for education and understanding of the benefits that NVDIMM technology can bring," said Adrian Proctor, Acting Chair of the NVDIMM SIG from Viking Technology. "The NVDIMM SIG will help to bring together our clients, colleagues, and the community to ensure an ecosystem that enables ease of adoption for NVDIMMs."

The NVDIMM SIG will participate in a Storage Industry Summit themed The Future of Computing - The Convergence of Memory and Storage through Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) January 28, 2014 at the Sainte Claire Hotel in San Jose CA. This event, held during the SNIA Annual Members' Symposium, will offer critical insights into NVM and storage. Registration for the Summit, and for the Symposium, is complimentary. The full agenda is at http://snia.org/events/symp2014.

A new webpage under the Solid State Storage Technology Community on the SNIA website www.snia.org/nvdimm provides a knowledge resource for presentations, white papers, FAQs, and webcasts on NVDIMM contributed by SIG companies. Materials from the Storage Industry Summit will also be available on this page. For those interested in joining the NVDIMM SIG, please contact nvdimmsigchair@snia.org.

NVDIMM SIG Member Quotes:

AgigA Tech:
Ron Sartore, AgigA Tech founder and CEO, stated, "AgigA Tech first started development of NVDIMM technology in 2007, having been founded with the sole mission to solve system performance issues posed by conventional memories. We are pleased to see the technology mature from those early days with the formation of this industry consortium. NVDIMMs today are gaining significant momentum as a new class of high-performance persistence storage, and we are eager to work with the NVDIMM Special Interest Group to enable broader adoption of the technology."

IDT:
Rami Sethi, VP/GM Memory Interface Products, IDT, stated, "As the market for NVDIMMs develops, system integrators and end users can benefit greatly from a community of industry experts, such as IDT, that develop and evangelize solutions for the ecosystem. As part of the NVDIMM Special Interest Group, we look forward to leveraging our extensive knowledge of memory interfaces to develop and promote standards and practices for NVDIMMs."

Inphi:
Nigel Alvares, senior director of marketing, Inphi, stated, "Inphi is committed to delivering innovative interconnect architecture solutions that scale to exceed the aggressive requirements of next-generation software-defined data centers. Through the NVDIMM Special Interest Group, we look forward to promoting the value of persistent memory and are committed to deliver the most-effective solutions for wide industry adoption."

Micron:
Robert Feurle, Micron's vice president for DRAM Marketing, stated, "Micron customers are looking for a turn-key solution for environments that require persistent DRAM capability for frequent access to big data. NVDIMMs provide performance, cost, and data-security advantages for enterprise-class server and storage applications. We are eager to be involved in this new Special Interest Group to further tout the benefits of and standards around NVDIMMs in the market today."

Netlist:
Devon Park, VP of Marketing at Netlist, stated, "Netlist is pleased to support SNIA and the NVDIMM Special Interest Group. As the pioneer in NVDIMM in RAID applications for over a decade, Netlist is committed to the widespread adoption of NVDIMM in main memory to accelerate application performance in servers and storage."

Pericom:
Kay Annamalai, Pericom's Director of Marketing, stated, "Pericom is pleased to be part of NVDIMM Special Interest Group to promote the rapid adoption of NVDIMM technology in the emerging server and storage platforms. Pericom is enabling the design of DDR3/4 NVDIMM with our high performance switching technology."

SMART Modular Technologies:
Mike Rubino, VP of Engineering, SMART Modular Technologies, stated, "SMART is pleased to offer its support to SNIA and the NVDIMM Special Interest Group. The SIG will help benefit many OEMs who want to adopt NVDIMMs by providing a broad base of support resources. SMART's dedicated NVDIMM engineering team has worked through many NVDIMM usage scenarios over the last five years. This industry collaboration demonstrates that NVDIMM technology is ready to move to more widespread adoption."

Viking Technology:
Adrian Proctor, Vice President of Marketing, Viking Technology, stated, "Not since the introduction of flash based SSD's have we seen a technology that that can have such a profound impact on server and storage application performance. The intent of this Special Interest Group is to communicate the benefits and value prop of NVDIMMs, facilitating the adoption of this technology into enterprise computing and storage. Viking Technology is committed to leading the endeavor and driving the technology advancements required for widespread adoption."

About SNIA

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is a not-for-profit global organization, made up of some 400 Member companies spanning virtually the entire storage industry. SNIA's mission is to lead the storage industry worldwide in developing and promoting standards, technologies, and educational services to empower organizations in the management of information. To this end, the SNIA is uniquely committed to delivering standards, education, and services that will propel open storage networking solutions into the broader market. For additional information, visit the SNIA web site at http://www.snia.org. For more information about the SNIA NVM initiatives, visit http://www.snia.org/forums/sssi.

About the SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI)

The SNIA Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) fosters the growth and success of the market for solid state storage in both enterprise and client environments. Members of the SSSI work together to promote the development of technical standards and tools, educate the IT communities about solid state storage, perform market outreach that highlights the virtues of solid state storage, and collaborate with other industry associations on solid state storage technical work. SSSI member companies represent a variety of segments in the IT industry.

Follow SNIA SSSI developments at:

• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/company/snia
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/snia.org
• Web: www.snia.org/forums/sssi
• Twitter: twitter.com/#!/sniasolidstate
• Blog: http://sniasssiblog.org/

¹ Not currently SNIA members