Imagine a memory that is a thousand times faster, a thousand times more durable, and ten times denser than today's NAND flash memory. If any other company claimed to have something like this in its lab, it would be hard to believe—but this is Intel and Micron, two true giants in the development and sale of memory. Their joint announcement brings us 3D XPoint, the most significant advance in non-volatile memory in the last 25 years. If it delivers even half of what it promises, the market is going to be set ablaze.
We've seen this pattern before: a company announces extraordinary advances in a specific component or technology, but it turns out everything is still in the lab and won't reach the market for a decade or more. Well, the consumer doesn't want to wait. In fact, they can't wait. This also extends to suppliers and manufacturers, the very names that promise viable solutions in fifteen or twenty years. We need solutions today, right now. The volume of data is growing exponentially. The web must be faster and accommodate more users. 4K content is just a shadow on the horizon, but its edges are coming into focus. We have good computers, but we've started to feel the limits of their designs. In short, we need to break the rules and embrace the exception. The computer industry urgently needs a bombshell, something that leaves mouths open and eyes glazed over. Intel and Micron say they have that bombshell.
A New Category of Memory
The name is 3D XPoint. Its official presentation describes this technology as a new category in memory, following the appearance of NAND flash memory in 1989. We all agree that we don't need another DRAM, and we don't need another NAND, but if we take what both companies have published at face value, 3D XPoint is better. First, there's its endurance. NAND flash offers a limited number of write cycles, but 3D XPoint multiplies that average endurance by a thousand. Then there's speed. Some solid-state drives are very fast, but they can't touch current DRAM. 3D XPoint can be up to a thousand times faster than NAND memory, a detail that puts it on par with DRAM, with the added advantage of being non-volatile. Finally, density. Multiplying capacity by ten while keeping the same overall dimensions translates into enormous benefits for any device.
Density, speed, resistance—will the price tag follow? That's the big question hanging over this announcement.
So, where's the trick? How can Intel and Micron achieve something like this? In very loose terms, 3D XPoint uses a three-dimensional design with a structure that allows each memory cell to be accessed individually, changing the bit state with a simple variation in voltage, and the so-called selector module coupled to each cell replaces the classic transistor. The best part? This has already left the lab. The first samples will be distributed during the last quarter, and final products will arrive in 2016.
