Enfabrica And Macronix Announcements On Accelerated IO And Search

This article will look at a recent interview with startup Enfabrica, who is offering an integrated IO architecture in the company’s server fabric chips that allows early implementation of memory and storage tiering before CXL 3.0 is widely available and considerable data center performance improvements and cost reductions. Also we show some improvements in search capabilities with Macronix’s FortiX memory-centric computing flash memory.

Enfabrica is a startup that is looking to address GPU network pain points and memory and storage scaling (including providing memory pooling features like CXL gen 3 before these are widely implemented by 2026). The figure below shows important considerations in scaling up memory and storage for data center applications.

They have developed an efficient server fabric chip with advanced features in a terabit Ethernet network fabric that they say can address these memory and storage issues (as well as compute and communication issues) as shown below.

The Enfabrica team says this server fabric will eliminate the need for specialized NICs and the traditional top of rack (TOR) communication hardware, and provides a universal data mover that addresses IO limitations in modern computing, including with GPUs.

The company says that they can provide scale up and scale out all computing resources providing 2X the performance per dollar. They also say it provides 10X higher throughput than NICs or DPUs and 4X higher performance per watt and with fewer chips and in-rack connections and that it can scale to 1,000’s of server nodes.

Macronix’s gave some insights into the FortiX memory-centric computing flash memory that it introduced at the 2022 Flash Memory Summit. The company says that it provides a cost effective substitute for DRAM for matrix and index searches. As shown in the figure below, the company says there will be a 10X improvement in query speed.

They say that there is also a security advantage for confidential searches (such as for fingerprints or personal and corporate data). FortiX is said to minimize database exposure and allows encryption of the search results.

Startup Enfabrica is introducing its server fabric to replace NIC and DPUs and providing data center memory disaggregation, higher performance and lower cost IO. Macronix showed a 10X improvement in database searches with the company’s memory-centric computing flash memory compared to DRAM.