Thursday, July 28th 2022
Intel to Shut Down Optane Memory Business, Retire 3D XPoint Memory
Intel's pioneering 3D X-point Memory, which sought to bridge the gap between non-volatile Flash memory, and volatile DRAM, stares at an untimely demise, as Intel plans to wind up both its Optane Memory business, as well as further development of 3D XPoint. The industry's reception of Optane Memory has been lukewarm; while cheap NVMe SSDs have driven Optane out of the client segment. Intel in its Q2-2022 Financial Results release, announced that it has initiated the winding down of the Optane Memory business, and that the company is incurring a $559 million "Optane Memory Impairment" charge this quarter.
3D XPoint faces technological competition from the latest crop of 3D-stacked Flash memory, which is achieving over 200 layers of density; while the latest generation of PCI-Express Gen 5.0 controllers enable data-rates in excess of 10 GB/s, and certain enterprise-relevant features of PCIe Gen 5. In a statement released to AnandTech, Intel says: "We continue to rationalize our portfolio in support of our IDM 2.0 strategy. This includes evaluating divesting businesses that are either not sufficiently profitable or not core to our strategic objectives. After careful consideration, Intel plans to cease future product development within its Optane business. We are committed to supporting Optane customers through the transition."
Source:
AnandTech
3D XPoint faces technological competition from the latest crop of 3D-stacked Flash memory, which is achieving over 200 layers of density; while the latest generation of PCI-Express Gen 5.0 controllers enable data-rates in excess of 10 GB/s, and certain enterprise-relevant features of PCIe Gen 5. In a statement released to AnandTech, Intel says: "We continue to rationalize our portfolio in support of our IDM 2.0 strategy. This includes evaluating divesting businesses that are either not sufficiently profitable or not core to our strategic objectives. After careful consideration, Intel plans to cease future product development within its Optane business. We are committed to supporting Optane customers through the transition."
73 Comments on Intel to Shut Down Optane Memory Business, Retire 3D XPoint Memory
Every new storage technology in the past 50 years has been really expensive at first. So it wasn't entirely out there to expect XPoint to succeed, despite initial pricing. What was unwarranted, was not acknowledging that, being a new piece of tech, it still faced challenges. And challenges are not overcome simply by wishful thinking.
Of course, if the comments you mention were just regurgitating Intel's marketing, that's fanboyism 101.
Fwiw, I rooted for XPoint, wanted to try one, found it too expensive for me and did not assume it will automatically take over the world. I hope that doesn't make me a fanboy. If it does, I was a fanboy of the tech, not of Intel ;)
Shame.
In saying that, I get 6-figure budgets for VDI infrastructure which is hella latency and IOPS sensitive, and even I could never justify the cost of Optane...
Having lived under the Iron Curtain, I have witnessed first hard economies being ruined because of resources spent with no regard to returns.
My quick takes:
- Not so much a home user kind of experience, most home users don't do heavy databases
- Performance was bound to be caught up by domestic type drives for most applications, and they did, I think even before gen4 drives became mainstream.
- The extreme endurance of the drive is commendable, but it isn't like you're going to outlast a 1200TBW drive in terms of market relevancy
- The use of U.2 for a consumer grade drive was a mistake. It was needed for the form factor, but created quite an undesirable setup with the M.2 U.2 adapter. Using mine on a PCIe X16 adapter card.
It was a decent run, but if Optane and 3DXPoint drains Intel's money, its better gone than existing.
And no, these people were on an entirely different level. They expected Optane to be the next big thing for Intel that would make Intel kill AMD.
But now I have to ask: what if, based on what is known about the tech (both from Intel and Micron), someone at Samsung, SK Hynix or Toshiba actually manages to build something viable in 5-10 years?
But these companies can EASILY carry it with all the profit they make elsewhere and provide the world with useful tech.
But no, its all endgame profit driven which imo is beyond sad, its damaging.
Resources they'd spend pouring into expensive technologies without ROI can be spent on technologies that DO have ROI. That means more funds for creating jobs and further R&D.
P900 series, idle power 6W, active power 16,4W. Thank you - no.
Greed is a natural, powerful motivator. It's less costly to work with it, than it is to work against it. Greed is also relative (e.g. someone from a 3rd world country would easily find a number of things you are being greedy about).
Where were you able to get such potent drugs?
Too bad it was never meant for the average consumer, especially pricewise.
It will be missed."Consumers" have spent way more for less useful things, especially in the last 2 years.
And the net loss?
And this isn't just an Intel vs AMD battle anymore, it's ARM & its licensees who are hitting them the hardest! Starting with Apple & now Amazon ~
www.phoronix.com/review/graviton3-amd-intel
A lot of posters here are simply ignoring how bad Intel has been over the last decade or so!More third world than India? Or maybe you're referring some of the Sub Saharan African nations or Latin America?Being (always) greedy is also why the planet is turning into a $hit hole now!
But let's just pretend that corporate greed isn't as bad as "Socialism" :rolleyes:
I have said this in the past that I don't like to compare (scale of) tragedies but you're making it look like one is much worse than the other, IMO they're both really bad!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
Well, and there is this:
"Since the summer of 2021, Intel has also been missing a manufacturer for the 3D Xpoint memory chips: At that time, the former development and manufacturing partner Micron sold its semiconductor plant in the US state of Utah to the automotive chip manufacturer Texas Instruments (TI) , which then installed the only compatible production lines surrounded. According to the information from Blocks & Files, Intel recently served the low demand for Optane products exclusively from existing inventories, which corresponds to the depreciation amount of 559 million US dollars." Source: Heise.de
The problem with that is that you also need your application to be designed around this SSD-RAM hybrid layer to see real benefit, otherwise it's just like running a faster SSD; SSD's are already fast enough that they're no longer the bottleneck in load times and application performance. And here's the real kicker; If you're re-writing your application to run on this hybrid layer, it's a very costly process that requires both time and money that would be better spent just throwing more RAM in the systems in the first place.