The march toward specialized systems Making the Case for Feature-Rich Memory Systems Rajeev Balasubramonian M any emerging workloads are constrained by the high cost of data access. Innovation in the memory system may soon be the primary driver of the computing economy. The result will be a memory system that is specialized, not commoditized. This article discusses the features that can be meaningfully added to memory devices. Not only do these features execute parts of an application, they may also take care of auxiliary operations that maintain high efficiency, reliability, and security. Introduction Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2016.2546198 Date of publication: 21 June 2016 1943-0582/16©2016IEEE Memory products have long been commoditized and standardized, while the processor has remained a hot bed of innovation for many decades. However, in the coming decade, we can expect a reversal in roles. Innovations to processor cores have started to taper out, and the microarchitectures of throughput-optimized IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE S P R I N G 2 0 16 57