Intel’s Optane reminiscence and storage merchandise may haven’t any competitors within the rising 3D XPoint market at the moment, however Micron Expertise and different distributors may begin to rock the boat over the following few years.
Micron ought to begin producing measurable income from 3D XPoint merchandise in 2022, based on Mark Webb, president of MKW Ventures. He stated distributors akin to Samsung and SK Hynix additionally may enter the fray with crosspoint-based part change reminiscence expertise.
“I am unable to consider a market the place Samsung stated, ‘Nah, we do not wish to be concerned in that,'” Webb stated throughout a latest panel dialogue on the Flash Reminiscence Summit. He stated reminiscence producers akin to SK Hynix and Western Digital have additionally accomplished analysis on part change reminiscence.
Micron and Intel co-developed 3D XPoint, a kind of part change reminiscence in a crosspoint array, to fill the efficiency hole between dearer DRAM and cheaper NAND flash. Micron purchased out Intel’s curiosity in IM Flash Applied sciences in Lehi, Utah, and the distributors ended their joint improvement work. Micron nonetheless provides Intel with 3D XPoint wafers underneath a contractual settlement.
Intel Optane has huge head begin
Thus far, Intel has dominated the roost on the 3D XPoint product entrance with the launch of its Optane-branded solid-state drives (SSDs) in 2017 and twin in-line reminiscence modules (DIMMs) in 2019. Webb stated that though Intel hasn’t made any cash on Optane, he expects 3D XPoint income will develop steadily over the following few years.
MKW Ventures estimates that 3D XPoint income will hit $1.1 billion in 2020, together with $600 million for DIMMs and $500 million for non-DIMMs/SSDs. The mixed 3D XPoint complete for Intel and Micron will attain $3.6 billion in 2024, when DIMMs symbolize about 78% of the income, Webb stated.
“The 3D XPoint ramp has been slower than we projected, nevertheless it has surpassed all different new reminiscence applied sciences and shipments,” Webb stated.
Most {industry} analysts have lengthy seen DIMMs because the extra essential kind issue than SSDs, serving as a lower-cost, higher-capacity different to DRAM. In nearer proximity to the CPU, DIMMs may also present a higher software efficiency enhance than an SSD can.
CXL may spark adoption
Webb predicted an inflection level for 3D XPoint DIMMs in 2023, when persistent reminiscence’s transfer off the DRAM bus would gas a “huge bounce” in gross sales. He stated the main possibility for the brand new bus is the Compute Express Hyperlink (CXL), however different options may also achieve traction to attach 3D XPoint reminiscence to the CPU.
“That’ll enable different architectures, so you do not have a totally proprietary [Intel] DDR-T so-called interface,” Webb stated. He claimed that Optane Persistent Reminiscence may grow to be obtainable on a brand new CXL bus over the following two to 3 years, however Intel has but to reveal its CXL plans.
Chris Petersen, a {hardware} programs technologist at Fb and board member of the CXL Consortium, stated CXL supplies a excessive bandwidth, low latency interconnect for heterogeneous workloads, together with AI and high-performance compute, and clears a path for reminiscence growth and pooling.
CXL runs on high of the PCIe Express bodily layer and allows versatile server designs, with a typical slot that may settle for PCIe or CXL gadgets, Petersen famous on the Flash Reminiscence Summit. He stated CXL would additionally simplify choices for purchasers, give them the flexibleness to help a variety of functions and allow them to extra simply make just-in-time server configuration choices.
“With [3D XPoint] persistent reminiscence on an industry-standard bus, finish customers who wish to use an AMD or Nvidia or Arm or different processor will be capable to use it,” stated Jim Useful, basic director and semiconductor analyst at Goal Evaluation.
Micron poised for severe problem
Saeed Raja, senior director of product administration in Micron’s rising merchandise group, predicted that, as soon as new interfaces akin to CXL come on-line, Micron would grow to be “as aggressive as anyone else available in the market.”
Raja stated Intel’s x86 servers have been the one possibility for 3D XPoint DIMMs, however AMD‘s latest acquisition of Xilinx and Nvidia‘s buy of Arm created two extra “huge verticals” for servers with Arm-based CPUs.
“Our [3D XPoint] merchandise will work in all of these three verticals,” Raja stated. “It is a very huge factor for the {industry}, and it is an important factor for the expertise and for us.”
Micron at present would not ship any 3D XPoint DIMMs, however Raja stated they’re on the corporate’s roadmap. Within the meantime, the one 3D XPoint product that Micron has made obtainable up to now is the full-height, half-length X100 SSD that it unveiled in late 2019 for cloud service suppliers, hyperscalers and server OEM clients. Micron promoted the X100 because the “world’s quickest SSD,” however Webb described it as “extra of a improvement automobile” for future 3D XPoint merchandise.
At this month’s Sanford C. Bernstein Operational Selections Convention, Micron CFO David Zinsner stated the corporate is in “early levels” with 3D XPoint, with no “significant overview” past the wafers it sells to Intel. He acknowledged that the primary merchandise are “extra simply to get the product on the market” with the specified efficiency, and subsequent generations would try for even larger efficiency and higher value construction.
Raja stated that Micron has new SSD kind components, and DIMMs are within the works to focus on clients’ differing wants, together with database and real-time analytics workloads. He stated product releases would align with the launch of latest x86- and Arm-based servers.
“Intel has accomplished a terrific service for the {industry}, highlighting the value proposition and the utilization of 3D XPoint,” Raja stated. “We simply stroll into the purchasers’ and place our merchandise in competitors with them.”
