PiF: in-flash acceleration for data-intensive applications

Abstract

To minimize unnecessary data movements from storage to a host, processing-in-storage (PiS) techniques, which move a compute unit to storage, have been proposed. In this position paper, we propose an extreme version of PiS solutions, called a processing-in-flash (PiF) scheme, that moves computation inside flash chips where data are physically present. As a key building block of a PiF solution, we present a novel flash chip architecture, CoX. Using a prototype PiF SSD based on CoX chips, we demonstrate that PiF-based SSDs are promising in accelerating data-intensive applications.