Intel has recently signed a new agreement with Micron for the supply of XPoint 3D flash memory. Analysts believe they paid Micron more money to continue to receive 3DXPoint products.
3DXPoint: Intel continues to rely heavily on Optane in 2020
Following the termination of the partnership with Micron for 3D XPoint memory, Intel also sold its shares in the production facility, forcing it to purchase 3D XPoint products from Micron. This supply relationship has been in place for a long time, but Intel has not yet transferred 3D XPoint to Dalian’s Fab 68 for production, so they do not yet have independent production capabilities for this memory.
Also, Intel doesn’t seem to make any money with Optane using 3D XPoint. Some analysts believe that Intel has lost $2 billion in 3D XPoint products in 2017 and 2018 and $1.5 billion in 2019. In other words, although the price of Optane is high, the profit margin can be very limited.
Although Micron has a factory, it still only markets its 3DXPoint products on paper, and there are not many measures in place to promote the marketing of 3D XPoint products on a large scale.
The company has promoted this technology by introducing Optane SSDs based on 3D XPoint. It has also continued to introduce hybrid SSDs using this technology as buffer media and non-volatile Optane with DIMM as the interface.
These measures indicate that Intel believes its memory technology has a significant future, so it is understandable to pay more for micron delivery.
Will they be lucky with this technology or will it be another failure of Intel? Only time will tell. What is clear is that the secret service is preparing to introduce new Optane products in 2020, hence this step. We will keep you informed.