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SanDisk and HP Announce Potential Competitor to XPoint Memory

Accepted submission by takyon at 2015-10-12 17:47:29
Hardware

HP and SanDisk have announced the development of Storage-Class Memory [theregister.co.uk], a technology with attributes similar to Intel and Micron's 3D XPoint ("crosspoint") memory [soylentnews.org]:

HP and SanDisk are joining forces to combat the Intel/Micron 3D XPoint memory threat, and developing their own Storage-Class Memory (SCM) technology.

SCM is persistent memory that runs at DRAM or near-DRAM speed but is less costly, enabling in-memory computing without any overhead of writing to slower persistent data storage such as flash or disk through a CPU cycle-gobbling IO stack. It requires both hardware and software developments. Micron and Intel's XPoint memory is claimed to be 1,000 times faster than flash with up to 1,000 times flash's endurance. Oddly enough HP and SanDisk say their SCM technology is also "expected to be up to 1,000 times faster than flash storage and offer up to 1,000 times more endurance than flash storage."

[...] The partnership's aim is to create enterprise-class products for Memory-driven Computing and also to build better data centre SSDs. The Storage-Class Memory deal is more long-term: "Our partnership to collaborate on new SCM technology solutions is expected to revolutionise computing in the years ahead."

[...] It's not yet known what the XPoint cell process is, beyond being told it's a bulk change to the material but not a phase-change. Analyst Jim Handy has written an XPoint report [theregister.co.uk] which said HP had abandoned its Memristor technology. This SanDisk partnership implies that this point is incorrect.

The HP/SanDisk duo also intend to contribute to HP's Machine concept, "which reinvents the fundamental architecture of computers to enable a quantum leap in performance and efficiency, while lowering costs and improving security."

As we previously reported, Intel and Micron plan to release SSD and DIMM XPoint-based products in 2016 [soylentnews.org], with Intel marketing them under the brand name "Optane".

Is HP's memristor partnership with Hynix [hp.com] obsolete? Will HP Enterprise finally give birth to "The Machine" and change supercomputing [theplatform.net]? Will Crossbar's ReRAM wither and die, or will the company join the fray and compete [soylentnews.org] to produce the ultimate post-NAND memory?


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