Tuesday, November 1st 2022
Yields of Intel Sapphire Rapids Processors Are Low, Mass Production to Start in 1H2023
Intel's upcoming Sapphire Rapids processors have faced multiple delays over the past few years. Built on Intel 7 manufacturing process, the CPU is supposed to bring new advances for Intel's clients and significant performance uplifts. However, TrendForce reports that the mass production of Sapphire Rapids processors will be delayed from Q4 of 2022 to the first half of 2023. The reason for this (yet another) delay is that the Sapphire Rapids MCC die is facing a meager yield on Intel 7 manufacturing technology, estimated to be at only 50-60% at the time of writing. Economically, this die-yielding percentage is not profitable for Intel since many dies are turning out to be defective.
This move will stop many OEMs and cloud service providers (CSPs) from rolling out products based on the Sapphire Rapids design and will have to delay it until next year's mass production. On the contrary, AMD is likely to reap the benefits of Intel's delay, and AMD's x86 server market share will jump from 15% in 2022 to 23% in 2023. Given that AMD ships processors with the highest core counts, many companies will opt for AMD's solutions in their data centers. With more companies being concerned by their TCO measures with rising energy costs, favors fall in the hand of single-socket servers.The source also cites that Intel has supply issues with low-end FPGA devices made by its Altera division that affect shipments of dual-socket systems. As a replacement, these dual-socket systems use Lattice CPLDs, which are also in low supply. This is why many CSPs and OEMs are now turning their heads to AMD and its solutions that are simpler to operate and have lower TCO. TrendForce thus predicts that AMD CPUs will reach a 25% market share in Q4 of 2023, with an annual growth rate of 7%.
Source:
TrendForce
This move will stop many OEMs and cloud service providers (CSPs) from rolling out products based on the Sapphire Rapids design and will have to delay it until next year's mass production. On the contrary, AMD is likely to reap the benefits of Intel's delay, and AMD's x86 server market share will jump from 15% in 2022 to 23% in 2023. Given that AMD ships processors with the highest core counts, many companies will opt for AMD's solutions in their data centers. With more companies being concerned by their TCO measures with rising energy costs, favors fall in the hand of single-socket servers.The source also cites that Intel has supply issues with low-end FPGA devices made by its Altera division that affect shipments of dual-socket systems. As a replacement, these dual-socket systems use Lattice CPLDs, which are also in low supply. This is why many CSPs and OEMs are now turning their heads to AMD and its solutions that are simpler to operate and have lower TCO. TrendForce thus predicts that AMD CPUs will reach a 25% market share in Q4 of 2023, with an annual growth rate of 7%.
37 Comments on Yields of Intel Sapphire Rapids Processors Are Low, Mass Production to Start in 1H2023
Also, by putting the IMC and other I/O in the same tiles, they have to waste silicon space of a better process on things that do not scale well.
There's another (possibly big) issue with such packaging. Can individual chiplets be tested and binned with good enough precision and reliability before they become part of a MCM?
Remember that, in Alder for example, there's an incredible number of SKUs in all shades of blue made from same silicon, to maximise the % of sellable parts with imperfections. Imperfections are common, they are not just defects but also inability of some cores to reach high frequency and/or low power.
Now does Intel build a 60-core monster with 4 tiles that are proven to have 15 good cores each, not just working but reaching, like, 3.2 GHz? Or is that a blind matching game? Or partially blind? Does packaging sometimes impair the characteristics of a tile without destroying it? Many questions.
Same goes for AMD of course, hence those 7600X chips with 2 chiplets.
Just to see how delayed SR is, Anandtech did the deep dive analysis in August 2021! And it seems it another 6 months until release at best.
In gaming, even selling better performing products than Nvidia at lower prices than Nvidia, doesn't seems to make a significant difference. People go and buy Nvidia cards blindly. And I don't believe that Raytracing performance and DLSS 2 alone is the reason driving people to buy overpriced Nvidia cards. AMD has not pushed it's latest RX 6000 series as it should. Tech sites and big YouTube tech channels had gone back in Nvidia's pockets lately. AMD needs to do more in marketing.
In laptops we see some models with 6000 Ryzen APUs in high end, but everything else is 5000 series or Intel. Many OEMs have turned to Intel to advertise higher number of cores/threads, even knowing that their newer products will be worst in battery, thermals, even performance.
In desktops AMD keeps selling CPU upgrades mostly for the AM4. The problem is that with upgrades people only buy the CPU. AMD is making money from also selling chipsets. But if people only upgrade and don't buy enough AM4 motherboards or jump to AM5, that means that AMD is not making enough profits from chipsets. And one day all those who wanted to upgrade will done their upgrades and then what?