Year created 2016 (TBC) | Created by Gen-Z Consortium | |
Gen-Z is an upcoming open protocol for memory interconnects within computer servers. The specification is managed by the Gen-Z consortium, which consists of technology vendors involved in designing CPUs, random access memory, servers, storage, and accelerators. The emphasis is on being an open and royalty-free "memory-semantic" protocol, one which is not limited by the memory controller of a CPU. The basic operations consist of simple loads and stores with the addition of modular extensions. It is intended to be used in a switched fabric or point-to-point where each device connects using a standard connector.
The consortium was publicly announced on October 11, 2016. Server vendor members include Cray, Dell/EMC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Huawei, IBM, and Lenovo. CPU vendor members include Advanced Micro Devices, ARM Holdings, Broadcom and Cavium. Memory and storage vendor members include Micron Technology, Samsung, Seagate Technology, SK Hynix, and Western Digital. Other members include IDT Corporation, Mellanox Technologies, Microsemi, Red Hat, and Xilinx. The board of directors is nominated on an annual basis. The core Gen-Z specification is supposed to be publicly available in late 2016.