Lose $400 million a year!Micron announces termination of 3D XPoint business, sale of chip factory

Micron announced today that it will sell its 3D XPoint flash memory chip fab in Lehi, Utah, with plans to sell the fab by the end of 2021 and exit the 3D XPoint technology business entirely.

Micron will discontinue all further development of products based on 3D XPoint technology due to insufficient demand and insufficient market size to justify continued investment in large-scale commercialization of 3D XPoint technology. It is understood that Micron has lost $400 million in the 3D XPoint product line this year.

What kind of technology is 3D XPoint? 3D XPoint technology is a revolutionary storage technology jointly developed by Intel and Micron for 10 years. It first announced the results of its cooperation in 2015. In 2018, the two parties ended the joint development work. Micron bought out Intel’s corresponding business for $1.5 billion. . Although Intel continues to use 3D XPoint flash memory chips in its Optane product line, it relies on Micron for supply, and the supply agreement between the two parties will end at the end of this year. Micron intends to retain all of its intellectual property rights related to 3D XPoint, which will not be changed by the sale of the 3D XPoint flash chip factory. Intel will take over?

Intel makes 3D XPoint flash chips for its Optane product line in a New Mexico fab, but it’s unclear how many. Although Intel has sold the NAND flash memory business to SK Hynix, it may still take over Micron’s fab to ensure the supply of its own product lines. After all, Intel still provides related products using 3D XPoint technology in enterprise product lines such as data centers. product.

Micron has announced several storage devices based on 3D XPoint flash chips, such as the X100, but it has never been officially listed, making Intel the only supplier to sell products using 3D XPoint flash chips.

Micron said it will shift its focus to developing memory products that support the Compute Express Link (CXL) standard in the future. As CXL is an open memory standard, Micron plans to invest its R&D achievements and resources in 3D XPoint technology.