Challenges and Opportunities for Systems Using CXL Memory

We are at the start of the technology cycle for compute express link (CXL) memory, which is a significant opportunity and challenge for architecture, operating systems, and programming languages. The 3.0 CXL specification allows multiple, physically attached hosts to dynamically share memory. We call such a configuration a CXL pod. Pods provide an intermediate hardware configuration between a network of machines, each with their private memory, and a shared memory multiprocessor with a unified memory, accessible to all machines.