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Intel and Micron Unveil 3D XPoint Memory, 1000x Speed and Endurance Over Flash
MojoKid writes: Today at a press conference in San Francisco, Intel and Micron unveiled 3D XPoint (Cross Point) memory technology, a non-volatile memory architecture they claim could change the landscape of consumer electronics and computer architectures for years to come. Intel and Micron say 3D XPoint memory is 1000 times faster than NAND, boasts 1000x the endurance of NAND, and offers 8-10 times the density of conventional memory. 3D XPoint isn't electron based, it's material based. The companies aren't diving into specifics yet surrounding the materials used in 3D XPoint, but the physics are fundamentally different than what we're used to. It's 3D stackable and its cross point connect structure allows for dense packing and individual access at the cell level from the top or bottom of a memory array. Better still, Intel alluded to 3D XPoint not being as cost-prohibitive as you might expect. Intel's Rob Crooke explained, "You could put the cost somewhere between NAND and DRAM." Products with the new memory are expected to arrive in 2016 and the joint venture is in production with wafers now.
As with any new 'pewter tech, I'll believe it when when it I see it on Newegg with >500 reviews, > 3.5 stars, and affordable for the average Jane/Joe.
M.2 is the desktop interface for this, it supports 4 PCI 3.0 lanes at 985 MB/s per lane that is nearly 4GB/s. PCI 4.0 is not to far off and doubles that.
No sir I dont like it.
They can deny all they want - intel has been filing patents on a new type of GST PCM left and right over the last 6 years.
SATA 3.2 (aka SATA Express) is a connector change, but is actually PCIe. PCIe is already fast enough. IIRC, Apple hooks up some SSDs directly through PCIe.
And, PCIe can actually go "off board" via a cable (since PCIe is based on separate upstream/downstream lanes and differential line drivers). Also, PCIe 4.0 will have a transfer rate of 31.5 GB/s, yet be fully backward/forward compatible.
Intel already has a CPU package that has two substrates wire bonded together, one for CPU and one for memory. When I saw this, I assumed it would be to accomodate HP's memrister memory. But, now, it's [obviously] been planned for this new type of memory.
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
However, current operating systems and programming techniques aren't up to this yet. It will take a long time.
PalmOS has been 100% RAM-only from the original Palm Pilot all the way up to Palm Thungsten III (Palm T5 with Flash, and Palm Live with a micro drive where the first to actually have a permanent main storage).
Everything is in-RAM, everything is stored in in-RAM databases. Data saving is immediate, etc.
(Also, although not so extreme:
lots of embed system, usually Linux-based, only have a minimal amount of ROM as sole storage and mainly work using RAM. Though they aren't completely in-RAM oriented and still use the concept of "files" and "storage", and thus make use of ramdisk (usually tmpfs) to hold files.
Still, that also machine which mainly count on RAM storage).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]