Breaking the von Neumann bottleneck: architecture-level processing-in-memory technology

The “memory wall” problem or so-called von Neumann bottleneck limits the efficiency of conventional computer architectures, which move data from memory to CPU for computation; these architectures cannot meet the demands of the emerging memory-intensive applications. Processing-in-memory (PIM) has been proposed as a promising solution to break the von Neumann bottleneck by minimizing data movement between memory hierarchies. This study focuses on prior art of architecture level DRAM PIM technologies and their implementation. The key challenges and mainstream solutions of PIM are summarized and introduced. The relative limitations of PIM simulation are discussed, as well as four conventional PIM simulators. Finally, research directions and perspectives are proposed for future development.