  Generational improvements to commodity DRAM throughout half a century have
long solidified its prevalence as main memory across the computing industry.
However, overcoming today's DRAM technology scaling challenges requires new
solutions driven by both DRAM producers and consumers. In this paper, we
observe that the separation of concerns between producers and consumers
specified by industry-wide DRAM standards is becoming a liability to progress
in addressing scaling-related concerns.
  To understand the problem, we study four key directions for overcoming DRAM
scaling challenges using system-memory cooperation: (i) improving memory access
latencies; (ii) reducing DRAM refresh overheads; (iii) securely defending
against the RowHammer vulnerability; and (iv) addressing worsening memory
errors. We find that the single most important barrier to advancement in all
four cases is the consumer's lack of insight into DRAM reliability. Based on an
analysis of DRAM reliability testing, we recommend revising the separation of
concerns to incorporate limited information transparency between producers and
consumers. Finally, we propose adopting this revision in a two-step plan,
starting with immediate information release through crowdsourcing and
publication and culminating in widespread modifications to DRAM standards.
