This development is very interesting as it can greatly increase R/W IOPS performance with a queue depth of just 1. 3D Xpoint memory technology is the successor to standard NAND flash memory with an ETA likely in 2016.

Intel will call this SSD series the Intel Optane SSD and it will be available in form factors like M.2/NGFF, SATA-Express, PCI-Express (card). Obviously it makes use of the new NVMe protocol.

An early prototype is showsn right now at IDF and it seems to offer up-to 5.5 times the throughput of NAND flash-based DC P3700 series SSDs, that's a engineering sample and thus early development.

Compared to the queue depth of just 32 commands for AHCI NVMe offers command queue depth of a staggering 65,535 commands. Micron is the co-developer of 3D Xpoint so you may expect Crucial branded SSD drives on this technology as well.

Intel preps SSD based on 3D Xpoint Memory and it is FAST