Intel postpones production of Sapphire Rapids server processors to early 2022
Production of the Sapphire Rapids server processors will begin in the first quarter of 2022 and ramp up in the second quarter of that year, Intel says. This moves the roadmap forward three months. Sapphire Rapids was set to release in late 2021.
According to Intel, Sapphire Rapids is in high demand, but more time is needed to validate the improvements brought by the new generation of server processors. The production plans have therefore been shifted by a quarter compared to previous roadmaps.
Engineering samples of Sapphire Rapids processors are already in circulation among system builders. The processors and the accompanying Eagle Stream platform will use DDR5 and PCIe 5.0, both of which are firsts. The delay may have to do with validating it.
The Sapphire Rapids generation is made on Intel’s 10nm Enhanced SuperFin process. This is a further improvement on the 10nm process that Intel previously used in the Ice Lake server processors. Sapphire Rapids will be available for systems with 1 to 8 sockets.
Currently, Intel has server processors for 1 to 4 sockets in the Ice Lake generation that are made at 10nm and 14nm variants of the Cooper Lake generation for 4 to 8 socket configurations. The new Eagle Stream platform for Sapphire Rapids should equalize that again to one generation for all variants.
Monday Intel announced that there will also be variants of the Sapphire Rapids processors with integrated High Bandwith Memory. These HBM variants will be released after the availability of the regular versions.
When released, the Sapphire Rapids processors will compete with AMD’s EPYC 7003 server processors, which are made in 7nm and were announced in March this year. The 5nm Zen4 Genoa generation of the EPYC processors is also planned for 2022.
With its EPYC processors, AMD is currently gaining ground in servers, data centers and supercomputers. AMD notes that the latest edition of the Top500 supercomputer list now includes 49 systems with AMD processors. Six months ago, there were 21 systems. Compared to June last year, the number of AMD systems in the Top500 has increased almost tenfold.