XCENA and Samsung's MX1: A CXL Memory Expander with 3,072 RISC-V Cores

Xcena and Samsung's Near Memory Compute CXL Device

At Hot Chips 2026, XCENA and Samsung unveiled MX1, a CXL memory expansion device that also packs serious compute. MX1 connects via PCIe 6/CXL 3.2, hosting up to 2 TB of DDR5 and supporting SSDs for 'Infinite Memory'. Its chip integrates 3,072 RISC-V cores, a custom Vector Processing Engine, and a GPU-like cache hierarchy, delivering ~3 TFLOPS. This near-memory compute approach aims to mitigate the bandwidth and latency drawbacks of memory expansion, offering a more practical alternative to PIM.