Intel may completely exit from the memory business.
In 2015, Intel and Micron launched cooperation on the development and production of 3D XPoint, which is faster and more durable than the NAND flash. However, it is slower than DRAM, so they planned to develop a cost-effective non-volatile memory. It is said that Intel has always wanted to lower the price of its products below the manufacturing cost with higher yields. But it is far slower than DRAM, so that is hard to substitute DRAM.
In the beginning, Intel released Optane, which is used in NVMe SSD in 2017, and as a product of DIMM based later. It is the favor of the gamers due to its cost-effectiveness that allows them to upgrade memory at a lower cost.
Intel Optane Memory is a system accelerator designed to increase system responsiveness and save time from waiting for tasks to finish.
In Dec. 2020, Intel released two newest Intel Optane SSD, P5800X (for data center) and H20 (for Client application procedure).
However, Micron announced to stop the development of 3D XPoint immediately in 2021 and focused on the new memory-based products that used Compute Express Link (CXL) standards.
Micron sells its 3D XPoint production devices in Utah to Texas Instruments, since that, Intel has not been released new-gen products of Optane. In Jan. 2021, Intel announce to stop offering Optane-only SSD to the consumer market. At the end of 2021, Intel sell SSD and NAND business to SK Hynix.
”I never want to be in memory, you see I’m doing everything I can to exist our memory business in that regard.” Intel CEO Plat Gelsinger said in the interview of Stratechery.
It seems Intel will not design new products for CXL and PCIe Gen 5.