Samsung Launches Open Innovation Contest for AXDIMM Technology

If you have an idea on where the future of near-memory processing should be headed, Samsung Memory wants to hear from you.

On September 30th, the South Korean memory giant kicked off its first-ever Open Innovation Contest for AXDIMM Technology. Held to foster collaboration between industry and academia, the contest invites professors and students from universities in South Korea and the U.S. to propose innovative applications for one of Samsung Memory’s key areas of research focus: AXDIMM.

Short for “Acceleration DIMM,” AXDIMM is a powerful yet flexible near-memory acceleration platform. It allows researchers and developers to implement various functions in memory modules, and can be used to accelerate memory-intensive applications such as deep learning recommendation and genomic computation.

The goal of the contest is to identify ways that AXDIMM could be used to create future value. Students who are interested in joining the competition should form teams of up to five people, including a professor, and submit their proposals by November 15. Five finalists will be selected on December 15, and will be provided with a virtual AXDIMM system to perform R&D on their project until July 15, 2022. Proposals will be evaluated in each stage based on criteria including their level of innovation, the creativity of their use of AXDIMM, and the feasibility of their hardware and software architectures.

Each of the five finalists will receive a one-time R&D incentive of $10,000. Winning teams, announced on August 15, 2022, will receive $50,000 for first place, $30,000 for second, and $10,000 for third.

More information, including submission instructions, can be found on the contest’s webpage.