3d XPoint (New PC Memory Technology)

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Think your solid state drive is blazing fast? Then prepare to be amazed by the new storage system being proposed by Intel and Micron, which promises speeds that are one thousand times faster than current NAND Flash memory. The new type of memory, called 3D XPoint and pronounced cross-point, is said to be 1,000 times faster in both read and write than NAND, as well as being durable and dense. In fact, CNET reports that it’s ten times more dense than NAND memory, allowing it to squeeze more capacity into the same physical size while remaining energy efficient—and “affordable”, though it’s open for debate what the latter may mean. Intel and Micro claim that the new type of memory can be used as both system memory and non-volatile storage, suggesting it can be used to replace both RAM and SSDs. At first computers will use PCI Express to interface with the memory, but Intel claims that such a connection won’t be able to deliver all the speed benefits of the new memory, so new motherboard architecture will be required to make the most of XPoint.

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For those eager to see 3D XPoint in action, you’ll have to wait. Crooke said the manufacturing has only recently been moved from a research line in Micron’s Boise, Idaho fab to an Intel production fab in Utah. The firms will provide sample wafers to customers by the end of this year and the chips would be in actual products shipping to customers in 2016. My expectation is that big name data center customers such as Facebook, Baidu, Amazon or Microsoft will be the first ones to put something like this through its paces to see if they can find a home for the new technology.