Article Intel sitting on 2 years' worth of Optane inventory

[igor_kavinski]

Intel has Optane chip hoard with no plans to develop tech – Blocks and Files

Intel has no 3D XPoint manufacturing capability, no plans to start XPoint manufacturing, and no commitment to develop XPoint media.

blocksandfiles.com

They should just license the tech out to third parties at this point, rather than keeping it close to their chest and letting it rot. Idiots!

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Wh-a-a-t? We were excited about Optane and 3D-Xpoint some four years ago. Looking at the article link you posted, I see that the shortcomings are relevant to 2nd or 3rd generation XPoint product.

But what knocks me down is the statement that Intel has no "plans" along with no manufacturing capaibility. Intel?! "No plans"? ! It had been my understanding that Intel's planning for development of its products looked far in advance toward future products.

I've been thinking for about four years now that civilization is slowly collapsing. This seems to be another trail-sign to that effect.

 

[igor_kavinski]

It seems whatever Optane chips they have, they will repurpose for CXL compliant products and after that, if it is successful, they might decide to restart the Optane production facility, assuming it hasn't been stripped irrevocably of the required machinery/assembly lines.

 

[Billy Tallis]

they might decide to restart the Optane production facility, assuming it hasn't been stripped irrevocably of the required machinery/assembly lines.

The 3D XPoint manufacturing facility was sold to TI—by Micron, after they bought out Intel's stake in that fab. Intel never owned their own 3DXP fab, and were never able to generate enough sales volume to use anywhere near the full capacity of the fab they shared with Micron. The machinery for mass production of 3DXP is long gone, and Intel didn't even bid on it.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Intel never owned their own 3DXP fab,

Intel Invests $3.5 Billion in New Mexico Fab to Focus on Foveros Packaging Technology

Intel announced it is investing $3.5 billion in its Rio Rancho, New Mexico, facility to support its advanced 3D manufacturing and packaging technology, Foveros. The Rio Rancho site is where […]

www.hpcwire.com

While the Rio Rancho campus manufactures next-generation Optane technology, the upgrade project that was announced today does not commit additional funds for 3D XPoint/Optane fabrication.

Maybe they will leave the Optane specific areas of that facility alone, for the sake of future needs?

 

[IntelUser2000]

Optane unfortunately also suffers from serious server-side execution failures. I saw a weird roadmap where there was Donahue Pass(4th Gen Optane PM) on the high end, with Crow Pass(3rd Gen Optane PM) coming a quarter later.

They were saying the third gen is an "inflection point", and is a big change, the least of which is performance, and it's delayed pretty much a year due to Sapphire Rapids delay.

Anyways, about a month ago they said 3rd Gen is coming so take what you will.

Yea I hope it goes somewhere too but Pat is not a fan of the memory business. Remember, Andy Grove is most famous for getting Intel out of the memory business when they were full on in it. And they became very successful when they went full into MPUs.

 

[Anhiel]

I think the increase in CXL application could revive interest in Optane. I'm referring to the large memory expander Samsung showed recently:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-unveils-512gb-cxl-memory-expander-2-0

 

[igor_kavinski]

Gonna check out this webinar.

Sorry for the short notice. I just saw this in my company email inbox.

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Intel: Xeon 3rd gen Scalable CPU with Ice Lake platform. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

This training is prepared and delivered on-line thru interactive, customized presentation/show. The content covers: · Server market landscape and challenges overview · Latest intel intel IceLake server platform with 3rd gen scalable CPU · Intel® Optane Persistent Memory; · Ultra fast SSD...

us06web.zoom.us

Intel seems keen to dump their remaining Optane stock.