In July 2015, Intel and Micron Technology announced a new technology for memory and storage solutions called “3D XPoint™ technology“. It is a new category of nonvolatile memory that addresses the need for high-performance, high-endurance, and high-capacity memory and storage.
Now Intel had produced its Optane™ technology that provides an unparalleled combination of high throughput, low latency, high quality of service, and high endurance. The new technology is a special combination of 3D XPoint™ memory media, Intel Memory and Storage Controllers, Intel Interconnect IP and Intel® software.
From system acceleration and fast caching to storage and memory expansion, Intel Optane delivers a revolutionary leap forward in decreasing latency and accelerating systems for workloads demanding large capacity and fast storage.
The first product with this technology is the Intel Optane SSD DC P4800X. It is a 375GB add-in card that communicates via NVMe over a four-lane PCIe 3.0 link, and it is available for $1,520 or $4.05 per GB.
Optane™ storage could be used in many sectors and domains. It will help healthcare researchers to work with larger data sets in real-time, financial institutions to speed trading, and retailers to identify fraud detection patterns more quickly. Optane™ technology can also be used at home to optimize personal computer for immersive gaming experience.
The 3D XPoint innovative, transistor-less cross point architecture creates a three-dimensional checkerboard where memory cells sit at the intersection of words lines and bit lines, allowing the cells to be addressed individually. As a result, data can be written and read in small sizes, leading to fast and efficient read/write processes.
Memory cells are written or read by varying the amount of voltage sent to each selector. This eliminates the need for transistors, increasing capacity and reducing cost. The initial technology stores 128Gb per die across two stacked memory layers. Future generations of this technology can increase the number of memory layers and/or use traditional lithographic pitch scaling to increase die capacity.
You can get more detailed information about 3D Xpoint and Intel Optane technologies through their official websites.
Source: INTEL OPTANE, INTEL’S NEXT-GENERATION SSD TECHNOLOGY
