We reported last week that Intel has confirmed it has paused shipments of some of its 4th Gen Xeon Sapphire Rapids processors due to a newly discovered bug, but has not set a specific date for the resumption of shipments. I didn’t. The company has now issued the following statement: tom’s hardware It indicates that we have developed a firmware fix and have resumed shipping.
“Last week we informed you about an issue on a subset of 4th Generation Intel Xeon Medium Core Count Processors (SPR-MCC) that may cause system disruption under certain conditions. We have suspended the SPR-MCC of our department.” “We have shipped through a thorough evaluation of the firmware mitigations and are now confident that the firmware mitigations will resolve the issue. We have resumed shipping all versions of SPR-MCC and are working with our customers to deploy firmware as needed.”—Intel spokesperson tom’s hardware.
Intel initially suspended shipments of a subset of its oft-delayed 4th Gen Sapphire Rapids processor line after discovering a bug that “could disrupt system operation under certain conditions,” but the company has since It has not yet shared details of the issues it is currently mitigating. problem.
Intel said it has decided to suspend shipments of affected processors out of an abundance of caution while it works on a firmware fix. It’s certainly not uncommon for new bugs to be found in processors that have already shipped, teeth It’s unusual for these kinds of bugs to lead to shipping stops, suggesting that this wasn’t just an error. However, Intel said the firmware mitigation should not be expected to impact performance.
image 1 of 2
Intel’s 4th Generation Xeon comes in two basic designs. One is the XCC package, which uses four compute tiles (dies) to create a single chip, and the other is the MCC package, which uses a single monolithic die. As shown in the slide above, the MCC design will be used for chips with up to 32 cores, which is Intel’s source of mass sales, while the XCC variant will be used for Halo chips with 36-60 cores.
This bug only affected models built on MCC dies. Intel has not confirmed how long it has suspended shipments, but unofficial reports say the suspension began in mid-June. Intel says it is now resuming shipments of affected models and is distributing firmware fixes to partners, indicating that the company does not need to replace chips it has already shipped to customers. means.
