Samsung HybriDIMM to challenge 3D XPoint with DRAM/NAND hybrid?

Netlist and Samsung showed plans for the new HybriDIMM memory technology at the Flash Memory Summit. This is a hybrid of DRAM and NAND flash memory, it promises to offer large amounts of storage capacity at near-memory speeds thanks to the use of predictive software called PreSight, which loads data into DRAM from NAND in anticipation of it being needed.

As pointed out by The Register, it will be interesting to see how this stacks up versus the 3D XPoint technology that will be commercialized by Intel (Optane) and Micron (QuantX). The first HybriDIMMs are expected to sample later this year.

Netlist says HybriDIMM is the industry's first ever Storage Class Memory technology that unifies DRAM and NAND into a resource that provides storage at near-memory speeds and memory at storage capacities, filling a price/performance gap between DRAM and flash. It is intended to help address the explosive growth of unstructured data and the increasing need to process that data in memory.

According to Netlist, HybriDIMM:

Unites DRAM and NAND flash on LRDIMMs.

Lowers memory costs by up to 80 per cent vs traditional DRAM.

With buffering technology, improves access times to near-memory speed and 1000x vs PCIe SSD.

Is 100 per cent compatible with current x86 servers.

Uses PreSight predictive algorithms to pre-fetch and stage required data.

Enables the scaling of "memory" to storage-level capacities in terabytes.