Accelerate 3D XPoint R&D! Micron officially began to acquire Intel Flash Intel shares

  On January 15, Micron announced that it is implementing the subscription rights for Intel shares in the joint venture company IM Flash Technologies. The transaction will be completed within the next six months to one year. On the day of completion, Micron will need to pay Intel cash of approximately US$1.5 billion.

Micron said that the acquisition of IM Flash is to accelerate the development of technology in 3D XPoint and to carry out the best manufacturing planning to strengthen the product portfolio.

It is reported that Micron and Intel jointly established IM Flash in 2006 and jointly launched 3D XPoint, a new generation memory technology. 3D XPoint is a non-volatile memory, mainly used in data centers and high-end computers. Although it is not as fast as DRAM, it has a larger capacity and has a read/write speed of 1000 times faster than NAND Flash. It is also longer than NAND Flash, so it is considered by the market to complement the gap between DRAM and NAND Flash.

Sanjay Mehrotra, President and CEO of Micron, pointed out that the acquisition of IM Flash can provide Micron with flexible manufacturing and highly skilled personnel to drive 3D XPoint development and innovation, accelerate technology development and optimize manufacturing planning.

Micron expects this ongoing acquisition to have no significant impact on overall financial results calculated in accordance with non-GAAP accounting standards and will not change the company's FY2019 capital expenditure or long-term capital expenditure targets.

Micron pointed out that the transaction will be completed in the next six months to one year, and the date will be selected by Intel. On the day of completion, Micron expects to pay $1.2 billion in cash. The deal will terminate Intel's non-controlling interest in IM Flash and eliminate $1 billion in IM Flash member debt as of November 29 last year on Micron's balance sheet.

At the Micron Insight 2018 conference held in San Francisco, Micron revealed that the second-generation 3D Xpoint will have product samples at the end of 2019, but the details are not mentioned. It is expected that Micron and Intel will also part-time after completing the second-generation 3D Xpoint development in 2019.