While Intel is busy touting the benefits of its Optane SSD technology, Micron has announced that its own memory technology called 3D Xpoint memory, now rebranded as QuantX, will start shipping in late 2017. 3D Xpoint has been co-developed by Micron with Intel and is the basis for their Optane technology. Although Intel claims that their Optane technology is significantly faster with plans to replace conventional DRAM and SSDs eventually in the coming years, Micron has no plans to create their own storage product line but instead will be licensing QuantX memory technology to other memory manufacturers and the product will also be available in the form of a DDR-style memory modules as well as PCI-Express 3.0 slot devices.
Micron has not divulged any details yet as to which manufacturers are integrating their 3D Xpoint/QuantX memory technology to their products, but it is expected that the first products that will hit the market will be for the Enterprise market similar to Intel’s Optane DC P4800X SSD which was shipped a few weeks ago. Micron’s QuantX SSDs will have capacities of up to 1.4TB although pricing has not been disclosed yet. Intel’s 375GB DC P4800X is priced at $1,520 currently as it has no direct competitor.
Micron is also partnering up with throughput technologies like Gen-Z, for possibly expanding QuantX from x86 servers to ARM as well.
