Wednesday, May 27th 2020
Intel Reassures Investors of its Server Processor Roadmap: Ice Lake-SP in 2020, Sapphire Rapids in 2021
Intel's Investor Relations head Trey Campbell, in a "fire-side chat" with top investors at the Cowen Virtual Technology Media and Telecom Conference, reaffirmed Intel's commitment to its server processor roadmap. Intel is on course to introducing its 10 nm Xeon "Ice Lake-SP" enterprise processor family by the end of 2020, and "Sapphire Rapids" sometime within 2021.
"Ice Lake-SP" processor will introduce the new "Whitley" platform, with a new 4,189-pin LGA socket, which leverages PCI-Express gen 4.0. While retaining the DDR4 memory standard, the memory interface has been broadened to 8-channel, and reference memory clock speeds are expected to be increased to DDR4-3200. The company's "Sapphire Rapids" processor is expected to shake up the market, as it introduces next-generation I/O, when it launches alongside the "Eagle Stream" platform in 2021. The processor will be built on the refined 10 nm+ silicon fabrication node, feature "Willow Cove" CPU cores, and I/O feature set that sees the introduction of DDR5 memory standard, and PCI-Express gen 5.0.
Source:
Hardware Times
"Ice Lake-SP" processor will introduce the new "Whitley" platform, with a new 4,189-pin LGA socket, which leverages PCI-Express gen 4.0. While retaining the DDR4 memory standard, the memory interface has been broadened to 8-channel, and reference memory clock speeds are expected to be increased to DDR4-3200. The company's "Sapphire Rapids" processor is expected to shake up the market, as it introduces next-generation I/O, when it launches alongside the "Eagle Stream" platform in 2021. The processor will be built on the refined 10 nm+ silicon fabrication node, feature "Willow Cove" CPU cores, and I/O feature set that sees the introduction of DDR5 memory standard, and PCI-Express gen 5.0.
10 Comments on Intel Reassures Investors of its Server Processor Roadmap: Ice Lake-SP in 2020, Sapphire Rapids in 2021
Golden Cove will be the next big architecture after Sunny Cove, and is scheduled for 2021, Willow Cove is a "smaller" improvement over Sunny Cove.10nm, 10nm+ etc. denotes distinct generations of a production node, where they have changed some of the parameters of the node, such as gate pitch, material composition etc. Intel defines this, not you. Intel's 14nm have not evolved beyond 14nm++ since they have not changed the node, but changed the chip designs. Cannon Lake-U and Ice Lake-U/-Y are both made on 10nm, Tiger Lake-U/-H are made on 10nm+.
These days you can only trust Intel's products that you can buy, The rest may as well be vaporware. And it's very doubtful that aside from AVX-512 workloads these Xeon's will be competitive with EPYC.
Looks like investors are Intel's #1 priority. I wonder how much longer can they keep lying about their products that are are totally about to release "very soon"?. I guess until the money flows in no one complains much. But should the cash flow decrease then i predict heads will start rolling.
Lot of things now -
Xeon - Ice Lake, using Sunny Cove and 10nm+ DDR4, Gen 4 on LGA4189. I think it's a stop gap. Because LGA4677 is the big one next (7nm ? 10nm++ ? DDR5, Gen 5, 2021Q4, 2022)
DIY market - Rocket Lake, Willow Cove backport to 14nm++, Ringbus ? Gen 4, DDR4, We know it's also short lived as LGA1200 Z590 (Massive advantage over Z490 because of DMI upgrade finally after so many years) will be last. So HEDT in 2021 is based off Ice Lake then ? God knows, but LGA2066 is EOL now by CSL X being last. One more thing, this stupid Alder Lake biglittle garbage LGA1700 will it be based of what cove ?
SO much of stupid confusion vs AMD's Zen 4, Gen5, DDR5, 2021 Q4
But as long as they can make enough Ice Lake-SPs, there should be plenty of Ice Lake-X CPUs, as HEDT is not that high volume. A qualified guess would be a launch 3-6 months after the server platform.
A new socket is highly likely.
Not so rapid = Intel products coming later not sooner.
Rapids = Intel surrounded by events moving faster than them and have unforeseen obstacles and dangers ahead.
Ice lake = Intel skating on thin ice with the risk of falling flat or progress falls into the ice water bellow and frozen to death.
The Intel staff reliant on commissions or bonuses are getting very nervous.
How long will it take Intel to do an 'AMD' and find a FAB that can successfully deliver silicon better than Intel 14/10nm?