As new non-volatile memories are emerging, it is
the right time to re-evaluate the conventional memory hierarchy
by considering the potential of utilizing new non-volatile memory
components. This research is to design a new PRAM-based main
memory structure, supporting the advantages of PRAM while
providing performance similar to that of conventional DRAM
main memory. To replace conventional DRAMs with non-volatile
PRAMs as the main memory components, comparable memory
access latency and memory cell endurance should be supported.
For these goals, we propose a space effective DRAM adapter for
PRAM based main memory system. The DRAM adapter consists
of two page-block buffers to assure better use of spatial locality
and two filtering buffers for better use of temporal locality. The
proposed structure is evaluated by a trace-driven simulator using
SPEC CPU 2006 traces. Experimental results show that the
proposed DRAM adapter can reduce the access latency by
around 60 % and can increase lifetime of PRAM by around 20
times in comparison with the PRAM-based main memory
without any adapter. Thus, our proposed memory architecture
can be used to replace the current DRAM-based main memory
system.