SanDisk, HP Push ‘Storage Class Memory’ To Challenge Intel And Micron’s 3D XPoint

This past summer, Intel and Micron jointly announced a new type of memory they call 3D XPoint. While new memory types seem to emerge all of the time, this one stood out based on the fact that it's being touted as 1,000x faster than NAND. It almost seems too good to be true, and I guess that's all it is until we begin to see production silicon trickle out onto the market.

Nonetheless, Intel and Micron have just found themselves more competition with a duo involving SanDisk and HP. On the SanDisk side, the company has been tightly integrated into the memory and storage market for quite some time, and is one of the world's leaders in NAND production. To say it brings a lot to the partnership here is an understatement.

HP will be bringing its Memristor technology to the table, while SanDisk will offer up its non-volatile ReRAM technology. Ultimately, both companies will create non-volatile memory that, like 3D XPoint, will be up to 1,000x faster than NAND and 1,000x more durable to boot. The end product will fall into the SCM category, or Storage Class Memory.

SanDisk's Executive Vice President of Memory Technology, Siva Sivaram, is touting some amazing things to come from the fruits of this duo's labor. "Our partnership to collaborate on new SCM technology solutions is expected to revolutionize computing in the years ahead."

It's not mentioned when the resulting product will hit the market, but Intel and Micron's 3D XPoint will drop at some point during 2016. SanDisk and HP's creation shouldn't be too far behind.