It appears that Intel is abandoning its traditional SSD business. Sources with the Wall Street Journal claim that the company is nearing a deal to sell its NAND flash memory business to South Korea’s SK hynix in a massive deal valued at $10 billion.
“The companies are discussing a deal that could be announced as soon as Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, assuming the talks don’t fall apart at the last minute,” the Wall Street Journal wrote.
While the Wall Street Journal’s coverage didn’t include specifics as to what SK hynix would be buying, a follow-up report from Reuters suggests that Intel would be getting rid of its SSD business in the United States, as well as its flash-memory factory located in Dalian, China.
Note that this deal involves Intel’s NAND flash business only. The company will continue releasing 3D XPoint-based memory products, which have traditionally been released under the Optane brand.
3D Xpoint is supposed to blow away NAND flash in terms of latency and read/write performance. According to an Intel technology brief, Optane SSDs provide latency as low as 10 microseconds.