DIGITIMES reported that in 2012, Intel began to gradually withdraw its stake in Singapore Plant and reduced the shareholding of IM Flash Joint Venture. Intel also started to expand its market in mainland China and converted the Dalian plant into a 3D NAND factory, laying down the joint venture between Intel and Micron in 3D NAND layout of various future prospects foreshadowing Intel's NAND Flash strategy in recent years, Already step away from Micron, the two sides formally declared divorce, the industry is not surprised.DIGITIMES said the Purple Group and Intel have been interested in expanding cooperation, there are One of the reasons the industry speculated that Intel and Micron could "break up" can be seen as a pre-layout of the partnership between Intel's 3D NAND plant and Ziguang in the industry.
As for the reasons for the two companies to go their own ways, after the analysis of the industry, the number of stacked NAND stack, you need to adjust the Stacking of String Stacking, because the two sides think differently, and thus break up.Another possibility is that the current 3D NAND The mainstay of production is Charge trap, which is used by manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics, which is the only vendor that uses a floating gate architecture, and perhaps one of the two companies wants to change the charge Storage architecture, but this is equivalent to admit defeat, indicating that from 2D NAND to 3D NAND after the selection of floating gate is a wrong decision, so fall.
According to NAND Flash industry sources DIGITIMES quoted analysis, if Intel and the purple light group co-attack 3D NAND market, which will be Samsung, Toshiba and other manufacturers are most afraid to see the situation, because once the mainland forces involved in the current top-six 3D NAND market environment, fear of more rapid imbalance between supply and demand in the market, into oversupply.From Intel's point of view, if the introduction of violet power Intel, not only to Samsung, Toshiba and other camps, but also conditions for a better development of the mainland space, which A move United anti-Japan and South Korea is very good tactics.
DRAMeXchange has also published an article that does not rule out the possibility of seeking cooperation from other manufacturers such as Chinese manufacturers in order to increase its market influence after the independent development of NAND Flash technology by Micron and Intel in the future.
According to the news that we have collected, the incident should have little to do with Ziguang Group.
It is reported that, in the 3D NAND process, Intel and Micron have entered the second generation of products can be stacked 64 layers, is currently developing the third generation of products, is expected to be able to achieve 96 layers of stacking technology is expected to be available by the end of 2018, 2019 early. The two companies will also continue to work together on 3D XPoint memory, a technology that is known as the revolutionary technology that breaks Moore's Law.
Intel emphasizes that both parties believe that after independence, they will be able to devote more effort to optimizing their products and serving customers without affecting the roadmap and technology nodes. DRAMeXchange also said that as the 96-layer 3D NAND will not become a reality until 2019 Mainstream, analysis of the resolution of Micron and Intel split alliance will not affect the planning and structure of products of both sides after 2020.