Intel to close Optane business

Intel: Optane business will be closed – After a weak second quarter of 2022, Intel is now planning to completely discontinue its Optane business. The memory, which was launched in 2018, remained a niche product.

 

Intel boss Pat Gelsinger has initiated an ambitious change of strategy since taking office in early 2021 – but the results are still a long way off. In the past second quarter of 2022, the chip giant Intel not only made significantly less sales than in the same quarter of the previous year, but even reported a loss on the bottom line.

According to Gelsinger, the red figures are not only due to the economic downturn, but are also partly self-made – among other things due to the ramping up of the company’s own chip production. As a result, the CEO announced further cuts when presenting the quarterly results. Specifically, the SSDs and memory modules produced under the “Optane” brand are no longer to be sold. Full hiring is expected to begin as early as the current quarter.

 

Optane memory has remained a niche product

With its Optane technology, Intel wanted to fundamentally change the hierarchy of memory and storage. The memories are based on the “3D Xpoint” technology announced in 2015 by Intel and its then partner Micron. It wasn’t until 2018 that the first Optane products were finally launched – but the technology obviously didn’t make the leap out of the niche.

Intel wants to save investment costs by giving up the product family. However, the US chip manufacturer had to write off around 559 million US dollars for this.

Source: ICT Channel