Today’s Intel’s Q2 2022 earnings report was characteristically disappointing, but it also hid new announcements. Intel will completely terminate the Optane business. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger confirmed that Intel would end its Optane business by revealing in vague terms in its financial statements when it announced its financial results. This transfer will result in $ 559 million in inventory impairment / amortization.
Intel issued the following statement Tom’s hardware: “We continue to streamline our portfolio to support our IDM 2.0 strategy, which includes valuing sales businesses that are not profitable enough or are not at the core of our strategic goals. Carefully After consideration, Intel will discontinue future product development within the Optane business. We are committed to supporting Optane customers through the transition. “-Intel’s spokesman person Tom’s hardware..
According to Gelsinger, this is Intel’s sixth non-core business since its arrival, with core areas such as the recent sale of its drone business to the Elon Musk brothers and the sale of its SSD storage unit to SK hynix. Generated $ 1.9 billion in investment. For Intel business.
Intel used Optane memory to create both storage and memory products. This has long been rumored to be at a loss. Intel has already stopped producing Optane storage products for client PCs. This makes sense as it marks the beginning of a years of journey to sell the NAND business to SK hynix. However, Intel initially maintained its data center memory business, including persistent memory DIMMs that could act as an adjunct to main memory. This is a feature only provided by Intel. These products will also be discontinued.
Gelsinger cites the industry’s shift to CXL-based architectures as a reason to end the Optane business. This reflects the feelings of former Intel Optane partner Micron when it closed its business last year. Micron is the only manufacturer of 3D XPoint, the memory Intel uses to make Optane, which later sold the 3D XPoint fab to Texas Instruments, keeping Intel from having its own production facility.
Industry watchers reported that Intel was servicing existing Optane customers from inventory it had collected from Micron before the fab was closed, but wasn’t actively manufacturing memory. Intel has reportedly been in stock for several years, explaining the amount of amortization of perhaps $ 559 million.
Interestingly, last week we launched an initial test of Intel’s next-generation DDR5 Optane memory module (codenamed Crow’s Pass). These DDR5 modules were scheduled to debut later this year on Intel’s frequently delayed Sapphire Rapids chip. That obviously doesn’t happen. Contact Intel for more information and will update as needed.
This is the latest news … future updates.
