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Intel got out of memory when that became a complete commodity, similarly Intel sold their NAND business (now called Solidigm) a while ago to Hynix, because simi

Intel got out of memory when that became a complete commodity, similarly Intel sold their NAND business (now called Solidigm) a while ago to Hynix, because similarly NAND and SSDs are now commodities (in the sense of highly standardized, interchangeable product made by a large number of competing companies). It does make sense if you only wish to keep things where your company has unique advantages and doesn't need to compete solely on price in a commodity market.

bane 4y ago
You are absolutely correct in the history to my recollection. But I'd challenge that it was a good idea as having multiple product lines better creates opportunities for new and unique products in different spaces. Optane is an example of where Intel tried to "fake it" but ended up producing a confused product that didn't leverage common industry knowledge in either the memory or solid state storage spaces. More towards a near future, Intel should be looking at compute-on-memory hardware, which promises to radically improve computation in a number of areas, and fundamentally would give them an "in" into neural network-like tech. Similarly, the companies that do produce NAND and SSD technologies seem to have figured out how to make money in a commoditized and highly competitive market.
- scrubs 4y ago
  I agree! When memory became a commodity --- there are periods in markets when nobody confers distinction --- then maybe you keep your hand in to break even or small profit. But keep your eye on the next evolutionary step. Compute co-located with memory (non von Neumann) is that step. With the hw, there'd be an opening for a next gen OS to run it.
- mike_hearn 4y ago
  How did Optane represent faking it? It was and still is the fastest persistent storage ever made, no? I thought they killed it because of the difficulty of manufacturing it.
  - bane 4y ago
    It died because the first generation of Optane devices failed to take the market by storm and instead of advancing the technology they simply exited the market, eating all of the prior investment. Why they failed to take the market seems to be both a combination of lousy marketing (is it a drive, or are they RAM replacements?), selling only enterprise-class products, high prices, and competition technology that is both "good enough" and beats it in all of the other areas. Spec-wise, a Samsung 2TB 990 Pro, is about as fast (sustained, IOPS, etc.), a 10th the price, and is coming from a manufacturer with a reputation of sustaining development and releasing newer, better products in that product-line. If the part fails, you're likely to not only replace it, but upgrade it for the same cost.
    - andromeduck 4y ago
      IDK - I think the hyperscaler market should have been the target market but yeah more academia/open source accessibility would have been cool.
rektide 4y ago
It's extra bitter to see Intel exit NAND because they largely invented & drove NVMe. The p3700 was the first mainstream NVMe drive, July 2014, & is still a beast, still pleasantly fast with stable & high iops, albeit lacking in raw bandwidth. The before times were so awful. A sea of proprietary interfaces, dubious drivers. Intel identified a huge weak point in the ecosystem & created radical change where it was needed, taking something exotic & astronomically priced & building a stable better future, around what has always made PC so exceptional: standards. The flash industry was a mess, & Intel more than anyone made it real.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- andromeduck 4y ago
  The sucked at it though - kept trying to outsource, never paid enough to retain necessary talent even in discount markets like Canada.

bane 4y ago

You are absolutely correct in the history to my recollection. But I'd challenge that it was a good idea as having multiple product lines better creates opportunities for new and unique products in different spaces. Optane is an example of where Intel tried to "fake it" but ended up producing a confused product that didn't leverage common industry knowledge in either the memory or solid state storage spaces. More towards a near future, Intel should be looking at compute-on-memory hardware, which promises to radically improve computation in a number of areas, and fundamentally would give them an "in" into neural network-like tech. Similarly, the companies that do produce NAND and SSD technologies seem to have figured out how to make money in a commoditized and highly competitive market.

scrubs 4y ago
I agree! When memory became a commodity --- there are periods in markets when nobody confers distinction --- then maybe you keep your hand in to break even or small profit. But keep your eye on the next evolutionary step. Compute co-located with memory (non von Neumann) is that step. With the hw, there'd be an opening for a next gen OS to run it.
mike_hearn 4y ago
How did Optane represent faking it? It was and still is the fastest persistent storage ever made, no? I thought they killed it because of the difficulty of manufacturing it.
- bane 4y ago
  It died because the first generation of Optane devices failed to take the market by storm and instead of advancing the technology they simply exited the market, eating all of the prior investment. Why they failed to take the market seems to be both a combination of lousy marketing (is it a drive, or are they RAM replacements?), selling only enterprise-class products, high prices, and competition technology that is both "good enough" and beats it in all of the other areas. Spec-wise, a Samsung 2TB 990 Pro, is about as fast (sustained, IOPS, etc.), a 10th the price, and is coming from a manufacturer with a reputation of sustaining development and releasing newer, better products in that product-line. If the part fails, you're likely to not only replace it, but upgrade it for the same cost.
  - andromeduck 4y ago
    IDK - I think the hyperscaler market should have been the target market but yeah more academia/open source accessibility would have been cool.

rektide 4y ago

It's extra bitter to see Intel exit NAND because they largely invented & drove NVMe. The p3700 was the first mainstream NVMe drive, July 2014, & is still a beast, still pleasantly fast with stable & high iops, albeit lacking in raw bandwidth. The before times were so awful. A sea of proprietary interfaces, dubious drivers. Intel identified a huge weak point in the ecosystem & created radical change where it was needed, taking something exotic & astronomically priced & building a stable better future, around what has always made PC so exceptional: standards. The flash industry was a mess, & Intel more than anyone made it real.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
andromeduck 4y ago
The sucked at it though - kept trying to outsource, never paid enough to retain necessary talent even in discount markets like Canada.