Micron: 3D XPoint memory is four to five times more expensive than nand
Micron has announced that in 2017 the company will release products with 3D XPoint storage technology under the name QuantX. According to the manufacturer, the fast 3D XPoint is four to five times more expensive than nand memory that is now used in SSDs.
With its QuantX products, Micron will focus purely on data centers and enterprise applications. The memory manufacturer does not see the 3D XPoint technology as an interesting option for the consumer market because of the higher price compared to nand memory.
Micron CEO Jon Carter made the statements at the Flash Memory Summit conference, attended by Computerworld. Micron also announced the QuantX brand name at the conference. According to Carter, 3D XPoint memory is half as expensive as dram and that should make it interesting for data centers where a lot of working memory is used.
Developed by Micron and Intel, 3D XPoint is up to a thousand times faster than nand memory, according to the two manufacturers. It must combine the speed of working memory with the storage capacity of flash memory. Intel itself comes up with its own products based on 3D XPoint under the name Optane.
A recently published roadmap would indicate that Intel wants to release Optane SSDs along with its Kaby Lake processor generation by the end of 2016. Carter expects Intel’s Optane SSDs to be available in the first quarter of 2017, not by the end of this year. come to market. Unlike Micron, Intel does want to bring the technology to the consumer market: in 2.5″ SSDs and in M2 SSDs for tablets and laptops. In April, Intel showed a prototype of an Optane SSD with a speed of 2GB/s.
Carter does not rule out the possibility that QuantX products will appear in mobile devices at a later date, but according to the Micron CEO, that will take some time. Micron expects the first revenue from the sale of 3D XPoint devices in the second half of 2017, in 2018 that should play a greater role, but Carter does not expect a real breakthrough until 2019. He states that the question is in any case not the problem; many companies would already be asking for 3D XPoint products. Micron is now ramping up capacity to meet that demand in the coming years.