Intel Kills Optane Memory Company Entirely, Pays $559 Million to Exit
Intel’s Q2 2022 earnings report right now was uncharacteristically disappointing, but it also hid a new announcement: Intel is ending its Optane organization entirely. All through the earnings get in touch with, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger clarified the vaguely worded announcement in the earnings paperwork, confirming that Intel will wind down its Optane small business. The shift incurs a $559 million stock impairment/generate-off. We achieved out to Intel for remark on the issue:
“We go on to rationalize our portfolio in assist of our IDM 2. method. This includes analyzing divesting businesses that are possibly not sufficiently financially rewarding or not core to our strategic aims. After careful consideration, Intel programs to stop foreseeable future products growth in its Optane business enterprise. We are dedicated to supporting Optane prospects by way of the changeover.”— Intel’s spokesperson to Tom’s Hardware.
Gelsinger stated this marks the sixth non-core business enterprise Intel has offered given that his arrival, together with the modern sale of its drone company to Elon Musk’s brother together with the sale of the SSD storage unit to SK hynix, building $1.5 billion for expenditure in areas that are main to Intel’s business.
Intel made use of Optane memory to build both equally storage and memory solutions, and it has prolonged been rumored to be on the chopping block. At its debut in 2015, Intel and spouse Micron touted the underlying tech, 3D XPoint, as providing 1000x the performance and 1000x the endurance of NAND storage, and 10x the density of DRAM.
Intel experienced currently stopped developing its Optane storage solutions for consumer PCs, which would make perception as it is at the commencing of a multi-12 months journey to offer its NAND business enterprise to SK hynix. However, Intel originally retained its memory small business for the facts middle, including its persistent memory DIMMs that can perform as an adjunct to most important memory — a capability only Intel available. These products will now appear to an close, also.
Gelsinger cited an business change to CXL-based architectures as a motive for winding down the Optane business, mirroring Intel’s ex-husband or wife Micron’s sentiments when it exited the company last year. Micron was the sole substantial-volume fabricator of 3D XPoint, the memory Intel employs to make Optane, and the corporation afterwards marketed its 3D XPoint fab to Texas Devices, leaving Intel with no manufacturing amenities of its very own.
Marketplace watchers documented that Intel was serving present Optane clients from its stock that it amassed from Micron in advance of the fab was shut, but that it wasn’t actively fabricating the memory. Intel reportedly experienced various many years of inventory on hand, most likely detailing the magnitude of the $559 million generate-off.
Curiously, we observed the preliminary tests of Intel’s next-gen DDR5 Optane memory modules, codenamed Crow’s Pass, emerge just very last 7 days. These DDR5 modules had been planned to debut with Intel’s oft-delayed Sapphire Rapids chips afterwards this year. That obviously is not going to occur to move.
In its place, Intel will efficiently shell out $559 million to place an stop to its Optane business.
