Beyond Host-Side Control: HBM Controller Partitioning Across Host and HBM Base Dies

arXiv:2611.10930v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Recent generations of high bandwidth memory (HBM), such as HBM4, allow the base die of the memory stack to be manufactured using a logic process that can accommodate more complex controller functions next to the DRAM. We present the first systematic quantitative study of function-level controller placement between the host and the HBM4 base die on a silicon interposer. We divide the controller into its main functions and evaluate four placements, from a complete host controller to a complete base die controller, with intermediate placements that move maintenance or scheduling to the base die.