Intel & Micron Announce Memory Breakthrough: 3D XPoint Touted As 1,000x Faster, 10x Denser Than NAND

At an event held in San Francisco today, Intel and Micron jointly announced 3D XPoint memory – memory that promises to be 1,000x faster than traditional NAND, 1,000x more durable, and 10x more dense. Both companies consider this to be a “breakthrough”, and the biggest memory innovation in over 25 years. If the claims are lived up to, it’d be hard to disagree.

3D XPoint Wafer

Given the sheer advances of 3D XPoint, both Intel and Micron consider this to be an entirely new class of memory – again, something hard to disagree with. Says Rob Crooke, Intel’s SVP and GM of Intel’s Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group, “For decades, the industry has searched for ways to reduce the lag time between the processor and data to allow much faster analysis. This new class of non-volatile memory achieves this goal and brings game-changing performance to memory and storage solutions.”

While it’s drool-worthy to consider the performance benefits of 3D XPoint, its increased durability could be considered just as – or even more so – important. While today’s solid-state storage will offer a sufficient life span for most folks, it’s never going to be used for the sake of long-term storage. With a promise of a 1,000x longer lifespan over NAND, 3D XPoint would become one of the most durable storage types in the world.

3D XPoint didn’t happen overnight; it’s been in the works for over a decade, and was built from the ground up to tackle these aforementioned issues head-on. As seen in the above shot, the memory features a 3D transistor-less crosslane design that places the memory cells at the intersections of both word and bit lines. Ultimately, data can be read from and written to far more efficiently than with NAND, helping to deliver both gains (performance and durability).

On the topic of storage densities, 3D XPoint could provide about 10x the storage in the same physical space. This is good, too, since it’s claimed that the world’s total storage pool will increase from 4.4 zettabytes in 2013 to 44 zetabytes in 2020. It’s mind-boggling to think about.

One of the best things about 3D XPoint is that it’s not going to be cost-prohibitive, though it does seem certain that it’d carry a major premium over traditional NAND right out-of-the-gate. And on that note, there’s no telling exactly when we’ll see the first production-ready 3D XPoint part, but given what’s claimed, it looks like it will be worth the wait.