I'm assuming the usual suspects (starting with DD or the sockpuppet accounts who post literally the same text) who only misinterpret the headline won't read this -- or read it, understand it, and then lie about it:
"From Intel’s point of view, demand for 3D XPoint is actually higher than it can produce since it still needs to buy some wafers from Micron. "
For whatever reason Micron is not actually selling 3D Xpoint in products that are sold to the public at large right now. Obviously if you set yourself up to only sell to one customer who is also literally producing the same product in literally the same fab as you, then don't be shocked if that customer decides to sell its own stuff first and only buys from you as demand exceeds its own supply (and demand is exceeding supply or else Micron would have sold exactly zero).
Micron probably expected to sell to the major clouds like Google who already buy raw NAND and controllers and design their own drives. This probably didn't happen and they have an oversupply situation. Long-term that'll solve itself, so they're probably not really worried, even if they do have to report on it.
They aren't shocked. And they apparently don't have high expectations for the first generation of 3D XPoint or they'd be marketing it themselves. They chose to hold off another 2 years until the second generation is ready. Presumably Micron looked at the market and decided that it would be better financially to pay for the under-utilization charge than to try to bring a product to market. With their comments, Micron are simply explaining why they have an under-utilization charge and why their gross margins were 1% lower than they otherwise would be.
Why would anybody be surprised given the combination of overpricing and lackluster controller used by Intel which cannot take advantage not just Xpoint but even PCIex4?
> From Intel’s point of view, demand for 3D XPoint is actually higher than it can produce since it still needs to buy some wafers from Micron. Furthermore, as yields of 3D XPoint improve, Intel actually gets more good 3D XPoint dies from its 49% portion of the Lehi fab output. It is unknown whether Intel had actually planned to buy 3D XPoint memory from Micron, or if their original plans were to rely solely on their share and expecting Micron to use up their own share on their own products. Nonetheless, demand for the current Optane product lineup from Intel is only high enough to consume “Intel’s” memory and Micron does not expect demand to increase at least this quarter.
Just more Intel price manipulation here. Basically they (Intel) have a 100% oversupply, but are reporting it as "demand is meeting our outstripping supply" because they would rather not buy Micron's share of xpoint wafers and use those, because it hurts profit margins.
It's probably best longterm for Micron that the split is happening since it frees up capacity planning decisions when they won't have to cater to Intel's schedule and product roadmap.
lol, my thoughts exactly. Intel is kinda screwing Micron by not buying Microns’ producible share of xpoint, knowing there is at least some demand for it. what is Intel worried about, extra supply lowering prices!? Ohh the humanity!
There are x4 Optane products out now that do take advantage of x4 lanes. Or are you assuming they were all x2 because of the earlier M.2 models? I really don't think it's overpriced as much easier, at least for new tech, considering it won't wear out like most TLC NAND SSDs and has other benefits and advantages. Over time it will get cheaper. I'm guessing you were the type hoping for 1TB drives for like $10?
Before my first m.2 drive, my last 1 tb SATA ssd cosed me $199 and it had speeds only slightly slower than the 850 evo. The m.2 drive with the same capacity costed far more. The industry needs to bring prices down by at least 30%.
So Intel could lower the price of 3D Xpoint to get faster adoptiion by buying more from Micron on the cheap but instead it is keeping it as an ultra premium product. Booo Intel. I want cheaper Optane.
Yes, cheaper Optane please! I'd like to see more widespread use since NAND storage is looking less and less rosy as the potential for mainstream QLC storage and its extremely limited P/E numbers looms on the horizon and MLC is hard to come by in retail channels these days.
By that logic, we should all still be using mechanical drives because they're actually good enough to run a PC and the price per capacity is also 4x lower than TLC NAND.
New technology costs more than old technology. That's pretty normal. I like the higher endurance of 3D Xpoint memory. It's worth the price and will only get less expensive over time if the market accepts it as a replacement for NAND so it can enter much higher volume production.
Extremely limited? Projection for mature QLC NAND is 1000 P/E cycles, same as most TLC. Not the originally thought 50 to 100 P/E cycles and not the 500 P/E cycles from that one article. Samsung, Intel, Toshiba are all expecting 1000 P/E cycles. Samsung Z-NAND will replace any desire for MLC also, since it's treated like SLC. Bulk storage at QLC is going to change everything except for those who do the cheapest possible cloud hosting like BackBlaze.
1000 P/E cycles, which is not currently attained in any of the few QLC NAND products on the market today, is extremely limited compared to the 100,000 P/E cycles attained by SLC NAND in the recent past. Granted capacity at reduced cost is a good thing, but much of the cost reductions between MLC and TLC were not passed on to consumers. The price decreases we've seen recently exhibit a more natural volume/supply ramp up versus demand rather than a significant stair-step as would be observed with the introduction of much increased capacity through a sudden increase in density.
Sounds like Intel and Micron co-own the fab but have exclusive control of their own lines. In that case I can see why Intel refrained from getting more wafers from Micron as they would run the risk of not able to secure supply once Micron launches its own 3D Xpoint products.
Why would they run seperate lines though? Wouldn't it make far more sense to have co-ownership of all the lines and an output agreement? Otherwise if each partner is implementing separate IP in separate lines, their co-op agreement is largely owning the same clean room infastructure with entirely different fabs side by side.
They just have wafer agreements that designate portions to each based on ownership of the fab (51/49 split). The processing paths are 100% identical and the products are matched, Intel just doesn't want to take the marginal profit loss by having to buy Micron's share and then resell it
That makes zero sense if you consider the overall positioning of the consumer market, the breakdown of the bill of materials and margins for laptops which make up the vast majority of consumer. Enterprise market's margins and overall gross size means that it's far more important than consumer, the consumer premium laptop/premium desktop market is miniscule.
I wonder if Intel is telling the truth or just painting a nice picture of 3D X-Point to their shareholders. They are almost like dumping it to OEMs just to increase sales. Its high power consumption makes higher capacity ones unsuitable for laptops anyway.
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CajunArson - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
I'm assuming the usual suspects (starting with DD or the sockpuppet accounts who post literally the same text) who only misinterpret the headline won't read this -- or read it, understand it, and then lie about it:"From Intel’s point of view, demand for 3D XPoint is actually higher than it can produce since it still needs to buy some wafers from Micron. "
For whatever reason Micron is not actually selling 3D Xpoint in products that are sold to the public at large right now. Obviously if you set yourself up to only sell to one customer who is also literally producing the same product in literally the same fab as you, then don't be shocked if that customer decides to sell its own stuff first and only buys from you as demand exceeds its own supply (and demand is exceeding supply or else Micron would have sold exactly zero).
lefty2 - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
So, why don't Micron just shut down their 50% of the fab? They won't need XD point til 2020 when their product launchandychow - Wednesday, June 27, 2018 - link
They did. A shut down fab still costs a fortune in fixed costs.ZeDestructor - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
Micron probably expected to sell to the major clouds like Google who already buy raw NAND and controllers and design their own drives. This probably didn't happen and they have an oversupply situation. Long-term that'll solve itself, so they're probably not really worried, even if they do have to report on it.Yojimbo - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
They aren't shocked. And they apparently don't have high expectations for the first generation of 3D XPoint or they'd be marketing it themselves. They chose to hold off another 2 years until the second generation is ready. Presumably Micron looked at the market and decided that it would be better financially to pay for the under-utilization charge than to try to bring a product to market. With their comments, Micron are simply explaining why they have an under-utilization charge and why their gross margins were 1% lower than they otherwise would be.Yojimbo - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
I mean 1 percentage point lower...peevee - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
"Sales of 3D XPoint Disappoint"Why would anybody be surprised given the combination of overpricing and lackluster controller used by Intel which cannot take advantage not just Xpoint but even PCIex4?
coder543 - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
did you even read the article?> From Intel’s point of view, demand for 3D XPoint is actually higher than it can produce since it still needs to buy some wafers from Micron. Furthermore, as yields of 3D XPoint improve, Intel actually gets more good 3D XPoint dies from its 49% portion of the Lehi fab output. It is unknown whether Intel had actually planned to buy 3D XPoint memory from Micron, or if their original plans were to rely solely on their share and expecting Micron to use up their own share on their own products. Nonetheless, demand for the current Optane product lineup from Intel is only high enough to consume “Intel’s” memory and Micron does not expect demand to increase at least this quarter.
iwod - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
Micron had always known and planned Xpoint later In 2019. The Capacity is known to IntelIntel could buy from Optane from Micron shares of capacity.
Intel's Optane product demand is outstripping supply, but decided to only buy little from Micron.
No wonder they are parting away.
FullmetalTitan - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
Just more Intel price manipulation here. Basically they (Intel) have a 100% oversupply, but are reporting it as "demand is meeting our outstripping supply" because they would rather not buy Micron's share of xpoint wafers and use those, because it hurts profit margins.It's probably best longterm for Micron that the split is happening since it frees up capacity planning decisions when they won't have to cater to Intel's schedule and product roadmap.
Samus - Monday, June 25, 2018 - link
“No wonder they are parting away.”lol, my thoughts exactly. Intel is kinda screwing Micron by not buying Microns’ producible share of xpoint, knowing there is at least some demand for it. what is Intel worried about, extra supply lowering prices!? Ohh the humanity!
CheapSushi - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
There are x4 Optane products out now that do take advantage of x4 lanes. Or are you assuming they were all x2 because of the earlier M.2 models? I really don't think it's overpriced as much easier, at least for new tech, considering it won't wear out like most TLC NAND SSDs and has other benefits and advantages. Over time it will get cheaper. I'm guessing you were the type hoping for 1TB drives for like $10?eek2121 - Sunday, June 24, 2018 - link
Before my first m.2 drive, my last 1 tb SATA ssd cosed me $199 and it had speeds only slightly slower than the 850 evo. The m.2 drive with the same capacity costed far more. The industry needs to bring prices down by at least 30%.Jhlot - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
So Intel could lower the price of 3D Xpoint to get faster adoptiion by buying more from Micron on the cheap but instead it is keeping it as an ultra premium product. Booo Intel. I want cheaper Optane.PeachNCream - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
Yes, cheaper Optane please! I'd like to see more widespread use since NAND storage is looking less and less rosy as the potential for mainstream QLC storage and its extremely limited P/E numbers looms on the horizon and MLC is hard to come by in retail channels these days.Dr. Swag - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
64 layer TLC is good enough for 99% of users right now though and still costs wayyyyyy less than optane. Price/gb is like 4 times lower.I honestly don't see intel cutting Optane's price by that much anytime soon.
AphaEdge - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
So much for Intel pitching Optane as a NAND storage destroyer.PeachNCream - Friday, June 22, 2018 - link
By that logic, we should all still be using mechanical drives because they're actually good enough to run a PC and the price per capacity is also 4x lower than TLC NAND.New technology costs more than old technology. That's pretty normal. I like the higher endurance of 3D Xpoint memory. It's worth the price and will only get less expensive over time if the market accepts it as a replacement for NAND so it can enter much higher volume production.
CheapSushi - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
Extremely limited? Projection for mature QLC NAND is 1000 P/E cycles, same as most TLC. Not the originally thought 50 to 100 P/E cycles and not the 500 P/E cycles from that one article. Samsung, Intel, Toshiba are all expecting 1000 P/E cycles. Samsung Z-NAND will replace any desire for MLC also, since it's treated like SLC. Bulk storage at QLC is going to change everything except for those who do the cheapest possible cloud hosting like BackBlaze.tygrus - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
QLC probably requires wear aware adjustable sensing amps. Advanced techniques were added to enterprise MLC, some of this is now mandatory for QLC.PeachNCream - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
1000 P/E cycles, which is not currently attained in any of the few QLC NAND products on the market today, is extremely limited compared to the 100,000 P/E cycles attained by SLC NAND in the recent past. Granted capacity at reduced cost is a good thing, but much of the cost reductions between MLC and TLC were not passed on to consumers. The price decreases we've seen recently exhibit a more natural volume/supply ramp up versus demand rather than a significant stair-step as would be observed with the introduction of much increased capacity through a sudden increase in density.wr3zzz - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
Sounds like Intel and Micron co-own the fab but have exclusive control of their own lines. In that case I can see why Intel refrained from getting more wafers from Micron as they would run the risk of not able to secure supply once Micron launches its own 3D Xpoint products.Urthor - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
Why would they run seperate lines though? Wouldn't it make far more sense to have co-ownership of all the lines and an output agreement? Otherwise if each partner is implementing separate IP in separate lines, their co-op agreement is largely owning the same clean room infastructure with entirely different fabs side by side.FullmetalTitan - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
They just have wafer agreements that designate portions to each based on ownership of the fab (51/49 split). The processing paths are 100% identical and the products are matched, Intel just doesn't want to take the marginal profit loss by having to buy Micron's share and then resell itLolimaster - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
Instead of selling optane as cache they should focus the advertise for consumers to be used as a boot drive and for premium desktops.56-112GB for OS then another SSD/HDD included.
Urthor - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
That makes zero sense if you consider the overall positioning of the consumer market, the breakdown of the bill of materials and margins for laptops which make up the vast majority of consumer. Enterprise market's margins and overall gross size means that it's far more important than consumer, the consumer premium laptop/premium desktop market is miniscule.Lolimaster - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
Even at those low capacities the endurance should be at 1PB minimum, not a crappy 350TB.watzupken - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
I wonder if Intel is telling the truth or just painting a nice picture of 3D X-Point to their shareholders. They are almost like dumping it to OEMs just to increase sales. Its high power consumption makes higher capacity ones unsuitable for laptops anyway.Rudde - Saturday, June 23, 2018 - link
I do wonder if Micron will be using string stacking for their 4:th generation of nand. 192- or 256-layers nand would greatly increase ssd capacities.Arnulf - Tuesday, June 26, 2018 - link
"sales of its 3D XPoint memory were well below expectations"What are they saying? That people don't want to buy 18 GB SSDs in 2018? But ... 18 GB. In 2018? Geddit??
What DO these people want then, 2018 GB (~2 TB) SSDs ... or what ???