Intel and Micron unveil new storage chip called 3D Xpoint that's 1,000 times faster than flash memory, doesn't use transistors, and is already in production
is it just CBRAM hyped up? Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily : Intel, Micron Debut ‘3D XPoint’ Chips Without Transistors to Displace Flash Chris Smith / BGR : Intel's breakthrough new invention will fix all your memory issues and obliterate SSDs Stephen Lawson / Computerworld : Intel and Micron unveil 3D XPoint — a new class of memory Don Clark / Wall Street Journal : Intel, Micron Claim Chip Breakthrough Nate Swanner / The Next Web : Intel puts new ultra-fast 3D memory into production Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld : Intel, Micron announce new 3D XPoint memory type that's 1,000 times faster than NAND Chris Ciaccia / TheStreet.com : How Intel and Micron Are Trying to Help Make Sense of the World's Data Pradeep / Microsoft News : Intel and Micron announces breakthrough in memory tech which is 1,000 times faster than NAND John Callaham / Windows Central : Intel and Micron's 3D XPoint memory tech is up to 1,000 times faster than NAND Gil Russell / TechEye : Intel-Micron announce 3D XPoint SCM technology Seeking Alpha : Micron now up 9.2% after 3D XPoint reveal; Drexel upgrades to Buy
Context & Ripple Effects
The announcement lands just months after Intel and Micron's 3D NAND push to triple SSD capacity, but it is a different bet: where 3D NAND stacks more of the same transistors, 3D XPoint abandons them entirely, claiming a thousand-fold speed gain over flash while already running on production lines. That "in production" detail matters — most new memory classes die in the lab before anyone prices an SSD around them.
The competitive frame was set quickly: by October, HP and SanDisk had announced their own post-flash chip partnership predicting a 1000X speed increase over flash, meaning two separate camps were racing to define what comes after NAND. The related coverage also shows how the story resolves — first into Intel's data-center Optane drives in 2017, then into the partners' decision to keep collaborating on XPoint even as they unwind their NAND business.
First-order effects
- NAND-based SSD makers now face a proposed performance tier above flash that only Intel and Micron can currently manufacture, since XPoint runs on the partners' shared production lines.
- Data-center customers gain the first credible 'storage-class' option pitched between DRAM-speed and flash-persistence — the gap Intel targets with its later Optane SSD line.
Second-order effects
- Rivals are forced onto their own non-flash tracks rather than waiting out the transition — HP and SanDisk's competing chip partnership is the direct answer to Intel-Micron controlling the sole XPoint supply.
- The joint venture structure itself comes under strain: with one partner technology (XPoint) and another (NAND) maturing at different rates, Intel and Micron eventually split their NAND collaboration while keeping the XPoint alliance intact.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, storage stops being a single-flash market and stratifies into tiers — DRAM, storage-class memory like XPoint/Optane, and cheap high-capacity QLC NAND — each with different cost-performance tradeoffs and different supplier sets.
- New memory classes become strategic enough to reshape decades-old manufacturing partnerships: the same pair of companies that co-developed XPoint chose to end their broader NAND arrangement once each had independent scale, signaling that shared R&D no longer implies shared factories.
The trend: Memory vendors are layering specialized storage-class silicon above commodity NAND, and those differentiated tiers are pulling apart the joint ventures built for the era when flash was one market.