3D Xpoint | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Sun, 31 Jul 2022 14:14:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png 3D Xpoint | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Intel is killing off its Optane memory business https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/joao-silva/intel-is-killing-off-its-optane-memory-business/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/joao-silva/intel-is-killing-off-its-optane-memory-business/#respond Sun, 31 Jul 2022 14:14:43 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=569598 During Intel's Q2 earnings call, Pat Gelsinger, the company's CEO, announced plans to shut down the Optane memory business. According to Gelsinger, part of the reason is an industry-shift to other technologies, which have become more popular than Optane. . According to Tom's Hardware, Intel will have to pay $559 million for inventory impairment. The process …

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During Intel's Q2 earnings call, Pat Gelsinger, the company's CEO, announced plans to shut down the Optane memory business. According to Gelsinger, part of the reason is an industry-shift to other technologies, which have become more popular than Optane. .

According to Tom's Hardware, Intel will have to pay $559 million for inventory impairment. The process of closing the Optane memory division is already underway. Once completed, Intel will keep supporting existing Optane customers and help them through the transition to other technologies.

The news is not surprising considering that Intel had already sold its SSD storage division to SK Hynix in 2020. The deal only included the customer-grade storage products, with Intel keeping the data centre- and server-oriented IP.

Moreover, we also have to look at Micron, the sole producer of 3D XPoint. In 2021, the memory manufacturer sold the only 3D XPoint production-ready fab to Texas Instruments, leaving Intel with no production of the underlying tech.

The division closure suggests Intel didn't find an interested buyer to continue the development of Optane memory and 3D XPoint, the base technology behind Optane. Without a purchaser, Intel was forced to pay $559 million to write off the memory inventory.

KitGuru says: Have you ever owned any Intel Optane product? How was your experience with it?

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Micron is ditching 3D XPoint Memory and selling off its fabrication facility https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/matthew-wilson/micron-is-ditching-3d-xpoint-memory-and-selling-off-its-fabrication-facility/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/matthew-wilson/micron-is-ditching-3d-xpoint-memory-and-selling-off-its-fabrication-facility/#respond Wed, 17 Mar 2021 13:06:42 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=508127 Micron is stepping away from 3D XPoint memory technology. This week, it was revealed that the company is looking to sell its 3D XPoint memory fabrication plant, as well as ceasing all R&D funding into the technology.  Micron first began working on 3D XPoint technology six years ago in a joint venture with Intel. As …

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Micron is stepping away from 3D XPoint memory technology. This week, it was revealed that the company is looking to sell its 3D XPoint memory fabrication plant, as well as ceasing all R&D funding into the technology. 

Micron first began working on 3D XPoint technology six years ago in a joint venture with Intel. As we know, Intel went on to produce their own 3D XPoint products under the ‘Optane' brand name. Micron had similar plans to ship 3D XPoint memory products under the QuantX brand, but nothing ever shipped officially. Now, Micron is stepping away from 3D XPoint memory entirely, but there is one problem, Micron bought out Intel's half of the factory where the memory is produced.

Micron would rather use its money to expand its existing DRAM and NAND facilities, rather than spending the money to convert this particular factory. With little need for a 3D XPoint memory fabrication facility, Micron is now looking to sell the Utah-based factory. As reported by Anandtech, Micron is already in discussions with several potential buyers, the most obvious of which is Intel.

Of course, Intel buying the factory is not a guarantee, as their are other suitors who may not mind spending the extra money to convert it for other purposes. We should hear more on a potential buyer soon.

KitGuru Says: Micron is ditching 3D XPoint memory but Intel is still very much invested in the technology. Do you think Intel will end up expanding its Optane Memory operations by acquiring the factory? 

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Intel Optane SSD 905P 480GB SSD Review https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/simon-crisp/intel-optane-ssd-905p-480gb-ssd-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/simon-crisp/intel-optane-ssd-905p-480gb-ssd-review/#respond Tue, 27 Nov 2018 10:59:31 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=389539 This is a heck of a drive with a data endurance rating of 8.76 petabytes!

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Aimed at the high-end enthusiast/workstation end of the market, Intel's expensive SSD Optane SSD 905P product line promise ultimate performance, incorporating Intel's 3D XPoint memory.

The Intel Optane SSD 905P ships in two form factors with three capacities. The U.2 15mm form factor line is made up of a 480GB (the drive we are reviewing here), and the recently launched 960GB and 1.5TB models. The other option is for a HHHL (Half Height Half Length) AIC which starts at 960GB, with a 1.5TB option.

At the heart of the Optane SSD 905P is Intel's 7-channel controller which handles the 3D XPoint memory inside the drive.

The official Sequential performance figures for the 480GB drive are up to 2,600MB/s for reads and up to 2,200MB/s for writes. Random performance is stated as up to 575,000 IOPS for reads and 550,000 IOPS for writes.  These speeds are the same for all three drives in the range regardless of format.

Power figures for the drive are 3.3W when idle with an active rating of 12.8W.

The quoted endurance for the 480GB model is an astonishing 8.76PB written – yes that is petabytes, not the usual terabytes!  To put it another way, you can write 5TB of data daily to the drive for the entire length of Intel's 5-year warranty.

Physical Specifications:
Usable Capacities: 480GB
NAND Components: Intel 3D XPoint
NAND Controller: Intel
Interface: U.2 PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4
Form Factor: 2.5in 15mm
Dimensions: 101mm x 70mm x 15mm
Drive Weight: 140g

Firmware Version: 0325

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Samsung launches 800GB NVMe Z-SSD to combat Intel 3D XPoint memory https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/matthew-wilson/samsung-launches-800gb-nvme-z-ssd-to-combat-intel-3d-xpoint-memory/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/matthew-wilson/samsung-launches-800gb-nvme-z-ssd-to-combat-intel-3d-xpoint-memory/#comments Tue, 30 Jan 2018 18:19:51 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=362457 Samsung has been on a bit of an SSD-binge over the last week. We've seen the launch of the new 860 EVO and PRO series drives and now today, the electronics giant has announced its first Z-SSD product, the SZ985, sporting Z-NAND memory, Samsung's competitor to Intel's 3D XPoint memory technology. The SZ985 is a …

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Samsung has been on a bit of an SSD-binge over the last week. We've seen the launch of the new 860 EVO and PRO series drives and now today, the electronics giant has announced its first Z-SSD product, the SZ985, sporting Z-NAND memory, Samsung's competitor to Intel's 3D XPoint memory technology.

The SZ985 is a high performing NVMe SSD built for the enterprise market specifically. Using Z-NAND chips, Samsung aims to provide ten times higher cell read performance compared to 3-bit V-NAND chips, which feature on the company's consumer-grade SSDs. Z-SSDs also come equipped with 1.5GB LPDDR4 DRAM and a ‘high performance' controller, all of which combined can deliver up to 1.7 times faster random read performance compared to V-NAND equivalent SSDs.

Reducing latency has also been an important point, with the 800GB Z-SSD reducing write latency to 16 microseconds, five times less than the NVMe SSD PM963.

Given that these Z-SSDs are aimed at the enterprise market, they need to be long-lasting, so Samsung guarentees up to 30 drive writes per day for five years, or a total of 42 petabytes. This translates into storing around 8.4 million 5GB full-HD movies over the course of a five-year period. The meantime between failures (MTBF) is listed as two million hours, which sounds good on paper, but unfortunately isn't a great way of describing SSD life as we don't know what workloads Samsung put the SSD under to arrive at that figure.

In any case, Samsung's new Z-SSD line will come in 800GB and 240GB variants. It should deliver random read performance of 750K IOPS and random write performance of up to 170K IOPS. Pricing was not disclosed, but that isn't too surprising given that this SSD is intended for huge data centers.

KitGuru Says: Samsung has been delivering a lot of SSD news lately. We've already seen a chunk of what consumers can expect with the 860 Pro and EVO drives (which we happen to have reviewed already), now there is also something out there for the enterprise folks.

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Intel Optane Memory 32GB Review https://www.kitguru.net/components/hard-drives/simon-crisp/intel-optane-memory-32gb-review/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/hard-drives/simon-crisp/intel-optane-memory-32gb-review/#comments Fri, 14 Jul 2017 14:00:03 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=338286 We examine Intel's new 3D XPoint technology in the Optane Memory module.

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Optane is Intel's brand name for their 3D XPoint memory technology. The first Optane product to break cover was the Optane PC P4800X, a very high-performance SSD aimed at the Enterprise segment. Now we have the second product using the technology, this time aimed at the consumer market segment – the Intel Optane Memory module.

The Optane Memory module is built on a 2280 M.2 format using a PCIe 3.0 x2 interface, not the usual x4 PCIe 3.0 interface that the latest M.2 PCIe drives use. Intel quote Sequential Read performance for the 32GB Optane Memory module as 1,350MB/s, which is very impressive. Not nearly as impressive is the official Sequential write figure of just 290MB/s. Random 4K performance for the drive is quoted as up to 240,000 IOPS for reads and 65,000 IOPS for writes.

Endurance for the 32GB module is quoted as 185.5TB which works out around 100GB/day. Intel back the Optane Memory module with a 5 year warranty.

A clue as to what Intel sees the Optane Memory module being used for is that the device is only available in 16GB and 32GB versions. Although they can be used as boot drives at a pinch, Intel has another plan for the Optane Memory module. That is to blow the dust off an old idea to have another crack at trying to get the consumer market interested in the technology that is SSD caching.

Intel have been plugging away at SSD caching – combining a flash based device with a standard HDD to produce fast performing, large capacity storage sub systems for a very long time. Trying to persuade the consumer market that it's a technology worth pursuing has not been an easy sell by any stretch of the imagination.

Now that might well be set to change with the Optane Memory module, which offers the performance that was missing from previous attempts with the technology. That is all well and good but in the time frame it’s taken to get to this point, the consumer SSD market has been involved in a frantic price war which has seen the price of consumer SSDs drop to a level where 120GB or 240/250GB class drives are at a price point unimaginable even two years ago, making very fast primary storage easily obtainable.

3D XPoint


Jointly developed with Micron since 2012, Intel's 3D XPoint is the first new class of memory technology since Flash NAND was introduced in the early eighties. It has been designed to provide extremely fast, very low latency, high capacity storage devices and it has the potential to revolutionise the way we look at both system memory and storage systems as it has been designed, ultimately, to serve both areas.


3D XPoint sits between DRAM and NAND in terms of performance. Theoretically, 3D XPoint can work 100–1000 times faster than NAND, although for the time being current storage interfaces will put a limit on this advantage. The new memory is some 8-10 times denser than DRAM, which gives it a keen cost advantage over the older technology and has another major advantage over DRAM in that it is non-volatile.


The new memory is also much more durable than Flash NAND as 3D XPoint writes are, unlike Flash writes, non-destructive which should bring drives that far outstrip current Flash NAND technology endurance rates.

Physical Specifications:
Usable Capacities: 16GB, 32GB
NAND Components: 128Gb 20nm 3D XPoint
Interface: PCIe 3.0 x2
Form Factor: M.2 2280
NAND Controller: Intel
Dimensions: 22 x 80mm

Firmware Version: K3110300

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Intel’s 3D XPoint Optane SSD and Optane Memory are now available https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/matthew-wilson/intels-3d-xpoint-optane-ssd-and-optane-memory-are-now-available/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/matthew-wilson/intels-3d-xpoint-optane-ssd-and-optane-memory-are-now-available/#comments Tue, 25 Apr 2017 16:47:30 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=331744 Following on from last month's announcements, this week Intel's first 3D XPoint products officially became available. For the budget-oriented market, there is Optane Memory, a small M.2 cache drive intended to boost mechanical HDD performance, meanwhile for data-centres, Intel has the Optane DC P4800X, a super speedy PCIe SSD built using 3D XPoint memory. The …

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Following on from last month's announcements, this week Intel's first 3D XPoint products officially became available. For the budget-oriented market, there is Optane Memory, a small M.2 cache drive intended to boost mechanical HDD performance, meanwhile for data-centres, Intel has the Optane DC P4800X, a super speedy PCIe SSD built using 3D XPoint memory.

The Optane DC P4800X is roughly five to eight times faster than many leading SSDs and should help fill the gap created by DRAM shortages. According to Intel, this drive is particularly ideal for “critical applications with aggressive latency requirements”. This makes sense, as 3D XPoint is built to offer extremely low latency while being built to last. In terms of read and write speeds, this SSD offers up to 2GB/s over a PCIe connection. It consumes around 14 watts under heavy load, making it very power efficient, another thing that is increasingly important for server farms and data centres.

This particular SSD will be available directly through Intel, with the 375GB version costing $1520. In the future though, there will be 750GB and 1.5TB versions.

For those who don't have thousands of pounds, there is Optane Memory. These 16GB or 32GB M.2 cache SSDs cost $44 and $77 respectively and are intended to help speed up boot and load times for users who only have a mechanical hard drive to work with. According to Intel's own stats, Optane Memory should provide up to a 67 percent performance boost when paired with a HDD.

The let down here is that Optane Memory compatibility is limited to 200-series motherboards and Kaby Lake (or newer) processors. So unless you're building a budget system right now in 2017, then you may not be able to use this new tech at all. You can check the full list of compatible motherboards and CPUs, HERE.

KitGuru Says: 3D XPoint sounds like interesting technology, though it doesn't seem like it is going to take over the consumer market just yet.

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Intel’s first 3D XPoint SSD has arrived https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/matthew-wilson/intels-first-3d-xpoint-ssd-has-arrived/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/ssd-drives/matthew-wilson/intels-first-3d-xpoint-ssd-has-arrived/#comments Mon, 20 Mar 2017 16:36:26 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=326057 This week, Intel officially launched its very first SSD to make use of its new 3D XPoint technology. This tech was first demonstrated back in 2015 and is faster/denser than any other type of memory right now. In all, it is said to be several hundred times faster than the NAND architecture in use today. …

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This week, Intel officially launched its very first SSD to make use of its new 3D XPoint technology. This tech was first demonstrated back in 2015 and is faster/denser than any other type of memory right now. In all, it is said to be several hundred times faster than the NAND architecture in use today. The first SSD to make use of 3D XPoint is the Optane DC P4800X, which won't necessarily excite consumers with its 375GB of storage, but it could be a game changer for data centres.

The Optane DC P4800X is roughly five to eight times faster than many leading SSDs and should help fill the gap created by DRAM shortages. According to Intel, this drive is particularly ideal for “critical applications with aggressive latency requirements”. This makes sense, as 3D XPoint is built to offer extremely low latency while being built to last.

In terms of read and write speeds, this SSD offers up to 2GB/s over a PCIe connection. It consumes around 14 watts under heavy load, making it very power efficient, another thing that is increasingly important for server farms and data centres.

In all, Intel's $1520 375GB drive offers a combination of high throughput, low latency and high QoS, while being built to endure and alleviate the bottlenecks data centres currently face. In the future, there will be a 750GB version of this available, along with a 375GB model in a U.2 form factor. Eventually. 1.5TB SSDs will also hit the market.

KitGuru Says: This technology is excellent for data centres but won't be of much use to consumers until prices come down and capacities go up. Still, 3D XPoint seems like quite the innovation, though it has hit the market later than initially hoped. What do you guys think of Intel's new 3D XPoint SSD? 

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Sales of HDDs will drop in 2016, makers may have to cut HDD prices – Analyst https://www.kitguru.net/components/hard-drives/anton-shilov/sales-of-hdds-will-decline-in-2016-producers-will-have-to-cut-hdd-prices-analyst/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/hard-drives/anton-shilov/sales-of-hdds-will-decline-in-2016-producers-will-have-to-cut-hdd-prices-analyst/#comments Fri, 11 Sep 2015 21:04:08 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=267378 Sales of hard disk drives have been on the decline this year because of slow demand for personal computers and tough competition from solid-state drives. While Seagate Technology and Western Digital Corp. hope that demand of HDDs will pick up in the coming quarters, a market analyst claims that it will decline again. Moreover, in …

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Sales of hard disk drives have been on the decline this year because of slow demand for personal computers and tough competition from solid-state drives. While Seagate Technology and Western Digital Corp. hope that demand of HDDs will pick up in the coming quarters, a market analyst claims that it will decline again. Moreover, in the long-term, HDD makers will have to lower the price of their products because of competition.

Total available market of hard disk drives dropped to 125 million units in Q1 2015 and to 111 million units in Q2 2015, according to estimates by Seagate and Western Digital. By contrast, despite of dropping demand for PCs, sales of SSDs for client PCs in Q1 2015 grew by 3.5 per cent quarter-over-quarter, according to TrendFocus. Sales of all SSDs in the second quarter of 2015 increased by 2.9 per cent QoQ and totaled 23.859 million units.

wd_ae_hdd

According to John Roy, an analyst with UBS, the situation in the market of HDDs will not change in 2016 and shipments of hard drives will decline even more significantly than this year.

“We believe HDD units are likely to decline over 10 per cent in the next twelve months after falling over 6 per cent the last twelve,” the analyst wrote in a note to clients, reports TechTraderDaily. “Demand for data storage is growing but demand for PCs is waning – UBS is modelling PC units to decline 8 per cent in calendar 2015 and 2 per cent in calendar 2016.”

hdd_tam_estimates

Despite of dropping demand for hard disk drives, UBS does not expect prices of such storage devices to decline any time soon because there are two big players – Seagate and Western Digital – and a considerably smaller one – Toshiba Corp. – which cannot ship more than around 22 million HDDs per quarter and thus grab a significant chunk of market share away from the big two.

“The duopoly with WDC is likely to support pricing and gross margins for now, in our view, but unit demand looks weak and competition from flash is getting tougher,” wrote Mr. Roy.

wd_xe_enterprise_hdd_sas_3

Nonetheless, the emergence of storage-class memory, namely 3D XPoint from Intel Corp. and Micron, will affect pricing of solid-state drives based on NAND flash memory over time. Thanks to the fact that 3D XPoint is faster and more durable than NAND, customers will likely pay premium for SSDs on its base starting in 2016. Therefore, mainstream SSDs will get cheaper, which will force Seagate and Western Digital to reconsider pricing of enterprise-class, nearline and maybe even certain consumer HDDs.

“We believe HDD pricing will likely have to respond to flash and [storage class memory like 3D XPoint] with price cuts in the out years,” said the analyst.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Seagate and Western Digital know how to create advanced storage devices for all types of applications. If they had offered competitive SSDs for all market segments, solid-state drives would have helped them to offset declines of HDDs. Unfortunately, it does not look like Seagate and WD plan to roll-out a broad lineup of NAND flash-based drives in the coming months, which means that their business may decline again in 2016.

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Intel: SSDs to gain presence in datacentres as capacities hit 100TB+ https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/anton-shilov/intel-expects-100tb-ssds-broader-usage-of-solid-state-storage-in-datacentres/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/anton-shilov/intel-expects-100tb-ssds-broader-usage-of-solid-state-storage-in-datacentres/#comments Sat, 29 Aug 2015 01:40:11 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=265427 Nowadays datacentres use solid-state drives to store frequently used data, but continue to rely on hard disk drives to store occasionally accessed files. Intel Corp. believes that in five years’ time everything will change and SSDs will be used more broadly in datacentres. The chip giant forecasts that increasing capacities and decreasing costs of solid-state drives …

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Nowadays datacentres use solid-state drives to store frequently used data, but continue to rely on hard disk drives to store occasionally accessed files. Intel Corp. believes that in five years’ time everything will change and SSDs will be used more broadly in datacentres. The chip giant forecasts that increasing capacities and decreasing costs of solid-state drives as well as emergence of storage-class memory will help to expand usage of non-volatile memory.

Today the lion’s share of data in datacentres is stored on hard disk drives: they offer very low-cost per gigabyte, provide more or less decent performance for today’s needs and use existing infrastructure. Going forward, datacentres will have to deal with increased requirements for performance due to new workloads. As a result, operators of hyperscale datacentres and cloud services will have to expand utilization of solid-state storage technologies.

intel_datacentre_storage_today

Thanks to emergence of storage-class memory (such as 3D XPoint) and ultra-high-performance solid-state drives, in many cases it will be possible to use them for workloads like in-memory databases or business analytics instead of more expensive dynamic random access memory, the chip giant revealed at the Intel Developer Forum earlier this month.

intel_3d_xpoint_projections

Meanwhile, stacked three-dimensional (3D) NAND flash memory will help to dramatically decrease per-gigabyte costs of solid-state drives. Once per-gigabyte costs of SSDs and high-performance hard disk drives get similar, the latter become irrelevant, especially keeping in mind that high-end SSDs usually provide larger capacities than 10K and 15K hard disk drives.

intel_datacentre_storage_tomorrow

Moreover, 3D NAND will help to create SSDs with storage capacities not even imaginable today. Intel believes that leading-edge solid-state drives will feature over 100TB capacity sometimes in 2019.

intel_100_tb_ssd_1

Ultra-fast SSDs based on storage-class 3D XPoint memory, high-performance 3D NAND-based SSDs and extreme-capacity solid-state drives will all increase usage of non-volatile memory for storage purposes the coming years. Nevertheless, hard disk drives will remain in datacentres, they will continue to be important as they will still have to store massive amounts of data.

Intel is not alone in its optimistic predictions regarding quick expansion of SSD capacities in the coming years. Toshiba Corp. also projects 128TB SSDs to emerge towards the end of the decade.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While Intel and Toshiba draw very favourable pictures for non-volatile memory in datacentres going forward, neither of the company’s reveal actual amount of NAND flash bits they plan to produce by 2020. Demands for storage are rising fast and it is unclear whether it will be possible to fulfil that demand using NAND memory. Toshiba and SanDisk are very cautious in terms of capacity expansion (which is understandable since they own the world’s largest NAND production facility). But Intel does not seem to plan any expansion of NAND flash production at all. As a result, even if usage of SSDs in datacentres skyrockets in the coming years, it does not look like Intel will be the maker of those drives.

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Micron readies second-gen 3D XPoint, working on all-new memory tech https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/anton-shilov/micron-readies-second-gen-3d-xpoint-memory-working-on-all-new-memory-tech/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/anton-shilov/micron-readies-second-gen-3d-xpoint-memory-working-on-all-new-memory-tech/#comments Fri, 28 Aug 2015 11:02:48 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=265294 The first commercial solid-state drives based on the recently introduced 3D XPoint non-volatile storage-class memory are yet to hit the market, but Intel Corp. and Micron Technology Corp. are already working on the second-generation 3D XPoint technology. Moreover, Micron is also designing an all-new memory technology that will further close the gap between performance of …

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The first commercial solid-state drives based on the recently introduced 3D XPoint non-volatile storage-class memory are yet to hit the market, but Intel Corp. and Micron Technology Corp. are already working on the second-generation 3D XPoint technology. Moreover, Micron is also designing an all-new memory technology that will further close the gap between performance of DRAM and non-volatile types of memory.

At the Intel Developer Forum earlier this month Micron Technology disclosed that it is developing second-generation 3D XPoint technology, its second-generation 3D NAND flash memory as well as an undisclosed all-new memory technology. Intel and Micron collaborate in development of 3D XPoint and NAND flash memory, but it is unclear whether the two companies are jointly working on the “New Memory B Gen 1” as well.

micron_intel_3dxpoint_3d_xpoint_roadmap

The second-generation 3D XPoint memory will be introduced in 2016, just like the second-generation 3D NAND. The “new memory type B” is expected to be announced in 2017.

The differences between the first and the second generations of 3D XPoint are unknown. The first-gen 3D XPoint implementation is tens or hundreds times faster than NAND flash (in terms of read/write speeds, latency and IOPS peformance) and is dramatically more durable. One of the things where NAND flash excels the new type of memory is capacity. Modern NAND flash memory chips can store up to 256Gb of data, whereas the first 3D XPoint chips will store 128Gb. It is possible that with the second-generation 3D XPoint developers will focus on improving capacities rather than trying to further increase performance (still, keep in mind that increases of density usually also increase performance). Higher capacities will help to make solid-state drives featuring 3D XPoint a little cheaper (in terms of per-gigabyte costs), which will expand their market reach.

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While 3D XPoint is faster than NAND, DRAM is an order of magnitude faster than 3D XPoint in terms of latency and also outshines the new storage memory in terms of bandwidth. In fact, Micron considers latency of non-volatile memory as a major challenge of emerging memory types in general.

Scott Graham, Micron’s general manager of Hybrid Memory, revealed at the IDF that Micron’s emerging “new memory B” technology would be focused on performance and addressing some of the bigger industry challenges, reports HPC Wire. The details are scarce at this point, but it looks like one of the main idea behind the “New Memory B Gen 1” is to boost performance of non-volatile memory and shrink the gap with DRAM.

“As we develop new memory technologies and learn from 3D XPoint and develop 3D XPoint even further, then we will have subsequent versions of this technology and other technologies that can fit into this roadmap,” said Mr. Graham.

micron_emerging_storage_class_memory

Micron is expected to introduce its first products based on the first-gen 3D XPoint in the next couple of months and start their shipments in 2016. The second-gen 3D XPoint will be introduced in 2016 and will hit the market sometimes in 2017. By contrast, the all new “Memory B” will likely reach the market only in 2018. Before that happens, Micron, Intel and other industry players will have to invent high-performance interfaces for such types of memory.

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KitGuru Says: The holy grail of computer memory is non-volatile memory with performance and reliability of DRAM. Such memory type will unlikely be commercialized any time soon because no matter how rapidly non-volatile memory types are evolving, DRAM is not standing still. Perhaps, there will be a breakthrough in the coming years, but at present it does not look like it is coming…

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Intel: First 3D XPoint SSDs will feature up to 6GB/s of bandwidth https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/anton-shilov/intel-first-3d-xpoint-ssds-will-feature-up-to-6gbs-of-bandwidth/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/anton-shilov/intel-first-3d-xpoint-ssds-will-feature-up-to-6gbs-of-bandwidth/#comments Fri, 28 Aug 2015 00:45:18 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=265251 Although 3D XPoint – a new type of non-volatile memory jointly developed by Intel Corp. and Micron Technology – promises to significantly improve performance of solid-state drives over time, do not expect it to revolutionize SSD landscape overnight. According to performance estimates released by Intel, performance of the first-gen 3D Xpoint-based storage devices will be …

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Although 3D XPoint – a new type of non-volatile memory jointly developed by Intel Corp. and Micron Technology – promises to significantly improve performance of solid-state drives over time, do not expect it to revolutionize SSD landscape overnight. According to performance estimates released by Intel, performance of the first-gen 3D Xpoint-based storage devices will be limited by modern interfaces.

The first Intel Optane solid-state drives powered by 3D XPoint memory will be used for storing “hot” frequently used data, which is why they will have to offer very high bandwidth, low latencies and high IOPS [input/output operations per second] throughput. Intel’s first Optane solid-state drives featuring 3D XPoint memory will use PCI Express 3.0 or DDR4 interfaces and will come in PCIe card or DIMM [dual in-line memory module] form-factors.

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PCI Express 3.0 x4 cards are compatible with all existing servers and can offer bandwidth of up to 4GB/s. By contrast, NVDIMMs [non-volatile DIMMs] can potentially ensure even higher bandwidth and ultra-low latency.

Intel’s upcoming Xeon E5 v4 “Broadwell-EP” processors with up to 22 cores will officially support PC4-19200 (DDR4 2400MHz) memory, thus offering up to 19.2GB/s of bandwidth per channel (or 76.8GB/s per socket). Theoretically, NVDIMMs with 3D XPoint memory could provide similar bandwidth, but Intel just does not want to confirm that. According to a slide the company demonstrated at the Intel Developer Forum trade-show earlier this month, 3D XPoint NVDIMMs will only offer around 6GB/s of bandwidth, which is a lot, but can hardly be considered as a breakthrough. Still, keeping in mind that 3D XPoint can significantly shrink latencies and increase the number of IOPS [input/output operations per second], the new Intel DIMMs based on 3D XPoint will significantly improve performance of server-class storage sub-systems.

intel_3d_xpoint_projections

At the IDF last week the world’s largest maker of central processing units confirmed that before it releases NVDIMMs with 3D XPoint, it will have to work with JEDEC over amendments to the appropriate standard in order to ensure compatibility between SSDs and platforms. Keeping in mind that the DDR4 interface can handle extremely high data-rates, it is possible that by the time commercial 3D XPoint NVDIMMs hit the market, their expected bandwidth will be significantly higher than that revealed today.

intel_3d_xpoint_projections_micron

Both Intel and Micron believe that unique advantages of 3D XPoint – extreme read and write speeds as well as increased reliability compared to NAND flash and massively higher density compared to DRAM – will put the new type of memory into a special place in the storage hierarchy of datacentres. Eventually, storage-class memory will fill the gap between dynamic random access memory and NAND flash-based solid-state drives.

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KitGuru Says: It is noteworthy that Intel and Micron are rather conservative when it comes to making projections regarding performance of actual devices based 3D XPoint memory. The reason for that is not exactly clear. If 3D XPoint is as fast as the two companies describe it, performance of appropriate devices will be limited only by interfaces, not by capabilities of chips.

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Intel demos 3D XPoint-based Optane SSD, set to launch it in 2016 https://www.kitguru.net/components/motherboard/anton-shilov/intel-to-introduce-breakthrough-3d-xpoint-based-optane-ssds-in-2016/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/motherboard/anton-shilov/intel-to-introduce-breakthrough-3d-xpoint-based-optane-ssds-in-2016/#comments Tue, 18 Aug 2015 23:53:06 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=263951 Intel Corp. on Tuesday demonstrated Optane, the world’s first solid-state drive based on its 3D XPoint memory jointly developed by Intel and Micron. The company said once again that the new type of memory will enable considerably higher performance than existing NAND flash. Intel Optane SSDs featuring breakthrough performance will hit the market already in …

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Intel Corp. on Tuesday demonstrated Optane, the world’s first solid-state drive based on its 3D XPoint memory jointly developed by Intel and Micron. The company said once again that the new type of memory will enable considerably higher performance than existing NAND flash. Intel Optane SSDs featuring breakthrough performance will hit the market already in 2016.

Intel did not reveal exact specifications or performance numbers of the 3D XPoint-powered solid-state drive it demonstrated at the opening of its Intel Developer Forum. However, the SSD looked like another high-end SSD in a PCI Express card form-factor. According to the company, the drive features around five to seven times higher IOPS [input/output operations per second] compared to NAND flash-based Intel DC P3700-series solid-state drive.

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Brian Krzanich, Intel's chief executive officer and Rob Crooke, senior vice president of Intel, demonstrate Intel Optane SSDs at the 2015 Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, California.

Intel explained that its Optane solid-state drive based on the 3D XPoint non-volatile memory media also features its own advanced system memory controller, interface hardware and software IP.

intel_optane_ssd_demo
Intel's system featuring Optane SSD

Exact performance of Optane SSDs will be limited by modern interfaces, but 3D XPoint memory has a huge potential. The new type of memory has 8 – 10 greater density than DRAM, but its performance is tens or even hundreds of times faster than that of NAND flash, according to Intel. While performance of 3D XPoint is an order of magnitude below that of DRAM, it is still exceptionally high by modern storage standard.

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Intel Optane family of high-endurance, high-performance SSDs will hit the market beginning in 2016. The 3D XPoint media will also power a new line of Intel DIMMs designed for Intel's next-generation data center platforms, the company revealed.

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KitGuru Says: Looks like Intel’s and Micron’s 3D XPoint memory already works and can demonstrate impressive performance. Therefore, it is possible that next year the world’s top maker of CPUs will actually roll-out SSDs that will be dramatically faster than today’s solid-state drives. What will be interesting to see is what kind of interface will they use. PCI Express is good enough, but modern NAND flash-absed PCIe SSDs are already exceptionally fast and next year their performance will likely be limited even by PCIe 3.0 x16.

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Intel, Micron unveil 3D XPoint: up to hundreds of times faster than NAND https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/anton-shilov/intel-and-micron-unveil-3d-xpoint-memory-up-to-hundreds-of-times-faster-than-nand/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/anton-shilov/intel-and-micron-unveil-3d-xpoint-memory-up-to-hundreds-of-times-faster-than-nand/#comments Tue, 28 Jul 2015 22:59:42 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=261164 Intel Corp. and Micron Technology on Tuesday introduced a brand new type of memory called 3DXPoint. The new memory technology combines advantages of DRAM and NAND flash and is expected to enable storage solutions with performance that is orders or magnitude higher than today. 3D XPoint will be exclusively manufactured by Intel and Micron, which …

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Intel Corp. and Micron Technology on Tuesday introduced a brand new type of memory called 3DXPoint. The new memory technology combines advantages of DRAM and NAND flash and is expected to enable storage solutions with performance that is orders or magnitude higher than today. 3D XPoint will be exclusively manufactured by Intel and Micron, which may slowdown its adoption by the market.

The 3D XPoint developed by Intel and Micron is the first all-new memory technology since the introduction of NAND flash in the eighties. The new type of memory is non-volatile, it has 8 – 10 greater density than DRAM, but its performance is tens or even hundreds of times faster than that of NAND flash. Even though 3D XPoint memory combines advantages of both DRAM and NAND, it was not designed to replace either: it storage capacities are below those of 3D NAND and its performance is an order of magnitude below that of DRAM. Intel and Micron have been developing the new memory technology since 2012 and they expect 3D XPoint to be very useful going forward.

intel_micron_3d_xpoint_1

The architecture of 3D XPoint memory is called cross point array and it differs from both DRAM and NAND. Perpendicular conductors connect 128 billion densely packed memory cells (in case of the first 128Gb 3D XPoint chip). Each memory cell stores a single bit of data. Memory cells are accessed and written or read by varying the amount of voltage sent to each selector. This eliminates the need for transistors, increasing capacity while reducing cost. With a small cell size, fast switching selector, low-latency cross point array, and fast write algorithm, the cell is able to switch states faster than any existing non-volatile memory technologies today. Moreover, thanks to usage of innovative materials, the new 3D XPoint memory is dramatically more durable than NAND flash.

intel_micron_3d_xpoint_arch

The architecture can be scaled both horizontally and vertically: the initial chip stores 128Gb per die across two memory layers, but the amount of layers as well as the amount of cells can be increased by adding stacks and shrinking process technology.

intel_micron_3d_xpoint_b

Intel and Micron hope that dramatically higher performance of 3D XPoint compared to NAND flash will speed up many applications, including consumer, enterprise and even supercomputers. For example, retailers may use 3D XPoint technology to more quickly identify fraud detection patterns in financial transactions; healthcare researchers could process and analyze larger data sets in real time, accelerating complex tasks such as genetic analysis and disease tracking. While theoretically 3D XPoint can work 100 – 1000 times faster than NAND, modern interfaces will limit performance of the new storage media. Intel estimates that solid-state drives based on 3D XPoint will be around 10 times faster than contemporary drives with PCIe NVMe interface.

intel_micron_3d_xpoint_benefits

The manufacturers will provide samples of 3D XPoint technology to interested parties later this year and expect to introduce the first actual products featuring the new type of memory in 2016.

Intel and Micron will produce 3D XPoint memory at IM Flash Technologies’ fab in Lehi, Utah. The fab can start up to 20 thousand 300mm wafers per week, but it is also used to make NAND and 3D NAND memory, which means that initial supply of 3D XPoint memory will be relatively limited.

The developers of the new memory type do not disclose manufacturing costs or estimated prices of actual devices based on 3D XPoint devices. Officially, Intel and Micron say that the costs of 3D XPoint devices are somewhere between costs of NAND flash and DRAM. Keeping in mind that one 128Gb MLC NAND chip costs $7.5, whereas one 4Gb DDR3 DRAM chip costs $2.3 (which means that DRAM is 10 times more expensive in terms of per gigabit cost), it turns out that 3D XPoint will be significantly more expensive than modern NAND flash.

It is noteworthy that 3D XPoint is a proprietary type of memory developed by Intel and Micron, which will be produced exclusively by the two companies. The manufacturers have no plans to license their memory, which means that availability of 3D XPoint will not be really broad.

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KitGuru Says: If SSDs based on 3D XPoint are 10 times faster than contemporary solid-state storage devices, then their higher price will not be seen as a drawback. However, to fully realize potential of 3D XPoint, PCI Express 4.0 interface will have to be used, new controllers will need to be developed and new programs written. PCIe 4.0 will not be around for a couple of years and Intel’s next-gen Xeon “Purley” server platform will not even support it. As a result, it looks like it will take years before 3D XPoint shows all of its benefits. Until then, it will simply be an exotic overpriced technology with huge potential.

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