Flash Memory Times a Thousand

It’s pitched as the first major breakthrough in memory tech for 25 years, but just how big a deal is Intel and Micron’s 3D XPoint joint venture? It’s a non-volatile memory tech, like the flash memory in an SSD, but it’s not a souped-up version of anything existing— it’s completely new.

The claims are pretty staggering. 3D XPoint is claimed to be up to 1,000 times faster, 10 times denser, and 1,000 times more robust than existing flash memory. The realworld numbers are unlikely to fully deliver, but when Intel demoed 3D XPoint at IDF, the result was seven times faster IOPs performance than a conventional flash memory comparison drive. A big jump.

So, how does it work? Instead of having memory cells composed of gates, in which electrons are trapped, 3D XPoint is resistancebased. Each cell stores its bit of data by changing the conductive resistance of the cell material. This means transistors aren’t required, making for smaller cells and higher density.

What’s more, the memory cells are addressable at the individual bit level. That’s a huge advantage over NAND memory, where whole blocks of memory, typically 16KB, have to be programmed to save just one bit of data. With NAND, that limitation leads to the need for read-modify-write shenanigans, and can dramatically slow things down. XPoint promises the kind of performance we currently associate with volatile memory, like RAM.

When will it arrive? Intel says it plans to ramp up production for retail versions at the end of 2016, so watch this space. But if XPoint is even half as good as Intel claims, it’s going to be stunning.