Samsung & Red Hat: CXL Memory Validation Success

On January 4th, Samsung proudly announced a groundbreaking collaboration with Red Hat, a leading open-source software provider. This partnership achieved the industry's inaugural successful validation of Compute Express Link (CXL) memory operations within a genuine user environment, marking a pivotal moment in the expansion of the CXL ecosystem.

CXL stands as a unified interface standard that connects CPU, GPU, and memory through the PCIe protocol. Specifically designed to address the data throughput demands of emerging sectors like generative artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, and in-memory databases (IMDB), CXL memory seamlessly integrates into existing systems, enhancing speed, latency, and scalability.

Samsung Electronics' Vice President of Memory Product Planning expressed that the collaboration with Red Hat will significantly enrich and accelerate the comprehensive development of the CXL ecosystem. The validation, conducted on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.3 operating system, verified memory identification, read, and write operations in KVM and Podman environments. This empowers data center customers to effortlessly incorporate CXL memory without necessitating adjustments to their current hardware.

The noteworthy aspect of this successful validation was underscored by Red Hat's Asia-Pacific representative, emphasizing its potential to extend the applicability of CXL memory to Red Hat's Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) software. This accomplishment marks a significant milestone in establishing an open-source ecosystem for the development of next-generation memory by seamlessly integrating hardware and software.

It's important to mention that Samsung and Red Hat initiated their collaboration with the signing of a memorandum of understanding in May 2022. This collaboration encompasses various storage products, including NVMe SSDs, CXL memory, and storage-in-memory computing structures.