Intel has gotten out of the SSD business for good, but the move is considered a smart one.

Intel announced a $9 billion deal to sell its NAND flash and solid-state memory business to SK Hynix of South Korea, as well as a Fab 68 in Dalian, China.

When Intel was founded in 1968, its main business was storage. Its first product, the 3101, was an SRAM static random access memory. It was not until November 1971 that the 4004 ushered in the microprocessor era.

After the acquisition of Intel SSD NAND business, SK Hynix established a new Solidigm company and successively released enterprise-level SSD D7-P5520 and D7-P5620, and consumer-level SSD P41 Plus, which is generally regarded as the sequel of Intel 670P. The PLC SSD was also shown for the first time in the world.

The perception is that Intel needs to focus on its main business: CPU chips. If they lose their technological lead in the CPU market, their lead in everything else will become irrelevant.

The unconquerable realm ” As we enter 2019, NAND prices continue to fall, and Intel's memory business continues to lose money for four quarters of the year, this is a burden that Intel will have to shake off, especially as its main business falters.

After years of popularity, SSD units are getting cheaper and cheaper. In the foreign market, some 2TB SSD has dipped below $100. Bryan Ao, an analyst of TrendForce, a well-known statistical institution, pointed out that 2TB SSD of QLC particles will become a market disruptor next year, and now there is about a 30% probability that its price will be lower than $80 by then.

In fact, NAND Flash memory chips, which underpin SSDS, MicroSD cards, and eMMC storage products, are still in oversupply, and the agency expects another 20% decline by the end of the year to clear stock.

Statistics show that the current 1TB mechanical hard disk is about 2/3 of the price of 1TB SSD, and 2TB mechanical hard disk is nearly half of the price of 2TB SSD. The latest view from analysts is that the price gap between SSDS and HDDS will start to close next year, at least in terms of 1TB, which could make low-capacity HDDS even more unpopular with consumers.