@barrybigjobsNice segue brother, cheers :-) 8teySKHynix and...

@barrybigjobs
Nice segue brother, cheers 8tey

SKHynix and Samsung are both overseas ventures and therefore will find it tough in the current climate to buy anything semiconductor related off Uncle Sam...3D & Optane effectively go the way of the dodo but thanks for your efforts till now... "The Dige" gets a license regardless so I'll put all of Nutsy plums and my C*** on the block and say It's Micron!! IMO IMO IMO IMO IMO IMO

3D XPoint Conclusions
3D XPoint was announced by Intel & Micron with pomp and fanfare in 2015, claiming that it was 1,000 times faster, and 1,000 time more durable than NAND technology, and 10 times denser than DRAM. Today, with the delivery of 3D 64-layer TLC NAND technologies, those original claims are pipe dreams. The Wikibon research determines that 3D XPoint is struggling to stay ahead of 3D NAND for performance and endurance, and failing to compete with DRAM. 3D XPoint is failing to compete in volume or price against 3D NAND. The future looks even bleaker for XPoint, as all the NAND vendors focus on new fabs and research, and 3D NAND volumes explode in late 2017.

The announcement of 3D XPoint was a calculated risk by Intel and Micron. The business bet was that 3D NAND capability and volumes would be slower. Its failure is a sadness to most lovers of technology, including the author. Wikibon expects that Intel and Micron will significantly reduce investments in 3D XPoint technologies.

Intel and SNIA did excellent work in setting up great “NVMe” and “NVMe over Fabric specifications”. These were originally set up for 3D XPoint, but will work just as well with 3D NAND. These standards have provided the basis for much faster computer architectures, named as “UniGrid” architectures by Wikibon.

The rapid advances of 3D NAND and DRAM densities driven by the insatiable demands of the consumer market, the wholesale collapse of the magnetic hard disk market (HDD) in the consumer area, and the lack of adoption of 3D XPoint in the all-important consumer area has led to 3D XPoint being unable to keep pace in the consumer world. The lack of volume, lack of clear performance advantage and high cost (Table 1 shows Intel Optane is 6 times more expensive that 3D NAND) is inhibiting the adoption of 3D XPoint in the enterprise. 3D NAND is set to become denser, higher performing and lower cost as consumer and enterprise volumes increase.

Bottom Line: Wikibon projects that 3D XPoint will not make it to volume production in either the enterprise or consumer markets; it may reside in some specialist application niches such as wall street arbitrage and some military uses. The areas of uniqueness claimed for 3D XPoint will be addressed adequately and at much lower cost by DRAM, 3D NAND, and innovative non-volatile combinations of both DRAM and 3D NAND.


Why this persistent memory matters a lot for large data center operators goes beyond just data integrity. CXL memory controllers with persistent memory attached can bring persistent storage to a server, or a pool of servers. For example, today, we discuss power-loss protection or PLP on SSDs. In the future, data can be written in a persistent manner to Optane (as an example) and then flushed to NAND. This gives the application benefits of being able to complete fast sync writes and can remove most of the DRAM cache and PLP from NAND SSDs since persistence can be handled elsewhere. That translates to large TCO savings in storage.


And now we revisit a blast from the past....

Interface Switching ReRAM – high density memory for mobile and cloudThe development of Interface Switching ReRAM, a unique type of Non-Filamentary ReRAM, represents a breakthrough in ReRAM technology and is unique to 4DS.

Given 4DS’ development agreement with HGST and the acquisitive nature of its parent company, we believe Western Digital would be a very likely acquirer in this scenario.Additionally, companies like SK Hynix, Micron and Samsung might have a keen interest in securing Interface Switching Memory technology to gradually take over from 3D NAND Flash in a few years’ time.