Intel has repeatedly postponed the release of the 4th generation Xeon scalable “Sapphire Rapids” processor without clarifying the reason. Last week, the company admitted that it had to change Sapphire Rapids due to a security bug, but the problem seems to be bigger than Intel says.according to Igor’s laboratorySapphire Rapids had about 500 bugs and it took the company 12 steps to fix them.
Intel’s 4th generation Xeon Scalable Sapphire Rapids processor not only increases the number of cores to up to 60, but also has many new features such as Advanced Matrix Extensions (AMX), Data Streaming Accelerator (DSA), CXL 1.1 protocol, DDR5, HBM2E and more. Brings functionality. Memory support, PCIe Gen5 interface, etc. However, hosts with additional features increase the likelihood of hardware bugs, so Intel had to fix nearly 500 of them. Igor’s laboratory Report.
So far, Intel has released Sapphire Rapids processors A0, A1, B0, C0, C1, C2, D0, E0, E2, E3, E4, and E5 stepping to fix nearly 500 bugs. .. Given that modern processors integrate tens of billions of transistors, it is inevitable that there will be a certain number of bugs. They are called errata and are mitigated even with microcode or software updates. But given that respins cost tens of millions of dollars, 500 errata seem to be overwhelming, as are 12 respins.
Building a new respin is expensive, but the more pressing issue is that Intel has to delay the release of next-generation data center CPUs. Currently, Intel is targeting a large number of Sapphire Rapids processors in the 2023 calendar week 6-9 (February 6, 2023 to March 3, 2023) boot window. On the other hand, some SPR products may be launched in 2022 calendar week 42 and 2022 calendar week 45.
For Intel, the Sapphire Rapids processor and EagleStream platform are very important products. Not only is it expected to make Intel more competitive in the data center market, but it will also open the door to the company’s next-generation product, the code-named Emerald Rapids Processor, due out in 2023.
