In modern memory devices, storage banks are commonly partitioned into a set of small, fast subbanks that may be accessed in parallel to write and read blocks of data that span the width of the full storage bank. The trend in a number of memory applications, however, is toward finer-grained memory access so that, in a read or write operation directed to multiple subbanks, many storage locations may be accessed unnecessarily, needlessly consuming power and increasing thermal loading. As memory bandwidth demand continues to increase in portable and compact applications, future memory components will likely need to reduce power consumption to extend battery life and/or meet thermal loading specifications.
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