Intel and Micron have unveiled what appears to be the holy grail of memory. Called 3D XPoint (pronounced "cross point"), this is an entirely new type of non-volatile memory, with roughly 1,000 times the performance and 1,000 times the endurance of conventional NAND flash, while also being 10 times denser than conventional DRAM.
The first 3D XPoint memory chips will be sampled "later this year," but there's no official timeline for commercialisation. Importantly, however, Intel and Micron say that 3D XPoint is "affordable," which means we might actually see it in consumer-grade devices. Other new memory technologies, such as phase-change memory, have so far proven too expensive to compete with gloriously cheap DRAM and NAND.
A glorious wafer of 3D XPoint dies
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So, what is this 3D XPoint thing?
Annoyingly, neither Intel or Micron are giving away technical details at this point. We've asked for a whitepaper or some kind of technical specification, but no dice.
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