Stefan Mileschin

t a press event today in South Korea (?!) Intel shared plans for many of their next round of storage products, including the second generation of Optane enterprise SSDs and Optane DC Persistent Memory modules. They also announced that their next generation of 3D NAND flash memory will use 144 layers and come to market first with QLC-based SSDs, to be followed later by TLC-based SSDs.

It appears that the new Optane products are still using first-generation 3D XPoint memory, though Intel is not confirming that at this time. The Intel-Micron partnership that produced 3D XPoint memory and many generations of NAND flash memory is now ended, but Intel has not announced any plans for high-volume manufacturing of 3D XPoint outside of the IMFT fab in Utah that Micron is keeping in the divorce. Intel is bringing up a "technology development line" for 3D XPoint at a facility in Rio Rancho, NM, but so far this is only being discussed as an R&D location, not a large-scale manufacturing center. Last we heard, the long-term plan was to move 3D XPoint manufacturing to China.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14903...d-nand-roadmap