Re:Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B
by baybal2 on Tuesday October 20, 2020 @10:21AM
(#24837589)
There is a lot of flash makers, way, way more than DRAM makers. And there is tons of flash going to things other than PCs, unlike DRAM. Regular DDR DRAM only goes to high-end desktop PCs, and servers, with few laptops. Everything else has switched to the LP-DDR line even if there is no explicit need for energy saving (LPDDR4 may actually cost you less than regular DDR4 these days, especially given the extra for DIMM/SO-DIMM, through hole sockets, assembly cost, and wasted PCB space).
Re:Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B
by inasio on Tuesday October 20, 2020 @11:42AM
(#24838673)
Intel was not the first to NAND flash, but they pretty much started the SSD revolution with the first truly revolutionary SSD. I still remember Anand's review of the first X-25M (only 100GB) [0], immediately becoming the standard-bearer for the SSD revolution.
Re:Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B
by WarOnPrivacy on Tuesday October 20, 2020 @03:17PM
(#24841298)
I remember mid 1990's announcements from Intel's research partnership group that non-volatile flash ram drives were about to roll out to the consumer market.
By late 1990s the press releases dropped off and the idea of consumers running solid state drives went pOoF! for another decade.
Re:Intel exits memory business, sale to Hynix for $9B
by wtallis on Tuesday October 20, 2020 @02:19PM
(#24840667)
Intel's been focusing their flash development and production specifically for their enterprise SSDs. While you can find Intel flash in some third-party drives, it's not particularly common. And even when Intel and Micron were still partnered for NAND, it was Micron that wanted to make smaller-capacity dies for use in things like smartphones and memory cards. Intel's been all about big dies for big drives. This is really evident if you look at their market share in terms of SSD units shipped and in terms of SSD bytes shipped. Intel's average drive capacity in Q2 was almost three times that of Hynix.
It is important to note Optane is manufactured in partnership with Micron. The partnership is that Intel still owns part of the IP, but actual manufacturing with guarantee capacity is still done by Micron. And judging from previous Micron Investor notes, Intel hasn't been keeping up with their Optane Sales and buying agreement. So that means Intel will no longer be doing any NAND / Optane manufacturing by themselves.
Few other point worth noting,
Intel has one of the best Enterprise / DC SSD range on the market. And they are extremely popular in wholesales channel as well as with System vendors. Intel has been using these SSD as weapons / incentives by giving away SSD with enough Xeon CPU volume. One of the few reasons why AMD EPYC hasn't been gaining much ground at all in Enterprise segment.
The NAND Plant is in China. Wroth pointing out in the current geopolitical climate.
NAND is a commodity market. It doesn't swing up and down like DRAM in the old days mostly due to less players in the market and HyperScaler's volume creating enough buffer. But generally speaking Intel doesn't like commodity business. May be not commodity market per se, but Intel doesn't like margin fluctuation.
Overall I think it is a good move. Most of the time I am very cynical of CFO running companies. But I give Bob Swan some credit because so far things seems to be moving in the right direction. While the pace might not be fast enough. ( Mostly due to inertia ) But at least it is better than BK's era.