Intel has revealed that there will be a considerable delay in the arrival of 3D XPoint memory, and the blazingly fast modules apparently won’t pitch up until late 2018 at the earliest.
This news comes courtesy of The Motley Fool, which reports that in Intel’s latest earnings call, CEO Brian Krzanich said that: “There will be a second generation of Purley that includes 3D XPoint.”
In other words, 3D XPoint memory modules will arrive with Cannonlake-EP processors, so it’s unlikely to be here before late 2018 or more likely, the first half of 2019. So it’s at least two years away, or possibly even closer to a three year wait.
Note that this is 3D XPoint memory we are talking about here, and not Intel’s Optane superfast 3D XPoint SSDs which are still expected to pitch up before the end of 2016 as far as we’re aware (aimed at enthusiast PC owners and gamers who want lightning level loads).
Massive speed spike
3D XPoint is a transistor-less crosspoint (XPoint) architecture which it took Intel over a decade to develop, and the company claims it’s no less than 1,000 times faster than NAND flash (it will also have massively more endurance than your typical SSD, i.e. a far greater lifespan). So you can see why folks are so keen for its arrival.
Hopefully the delay in the arrival of the memory doesn’t foreshadow a hiccup with Optane and these SSDs sliding into 2017. But as ever with the tech industry, that’s always a possibility.
3D XPoint memory is squarely aimed at server and heavyweight usage as opposed to having an enthusiast slant like Optane, but even so, development in the tech will doubtless eventually trickle down to provide benefits beyond data centres and big business applications. But not any time soon given this news, that’s for sure.
Sourse: techradar.com