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Sapphire Rapids was supposedly to be released in fourth quarter of 2021. After at least two delays the new target date is set to February 2023. I don't believe the software development and bugs fix are the only reasons to cause it. Intel has done new CPU development numerous times for many years. It's a strange situation.
500 bugs in itself need not be critical - it all depends how severe the bugs are and whether they can be worked around or mitigated at acceptable cost. Can any piece of complex software or hardware be launched these days without any bugs at all ? I don't think so - we'd never get anything out the door.
What is alarming in the report (if true) is that this has already taken 12 "steppings" (that appears to be respins - one assumes at least one mask change per respin and almost certainly far more).
It would be interesting to learn how this compares to other similar projects and how much new design/firmware vs reuse of earlier designs there was on this design. But I doubt we'll even find that out.
500 bugs in itself need not be critical - it all depends how severe the bugs are and whether they can be worked around or mitigated at acceptable cost. Can any piece of complex software or hardware be launched these days without any bugs at all ? I don't think so - we'd never get anything out the door.
What is alarming in the report (if true) is that this has already taken 12 "steppings" (that appears to be respins - one assumes at least one mask change per respin and almost certainly far more).
It would be interesting to learn how this compares to other similar projects and how much new design/firmware vs reuse of earlier designs there was on this design. But I doubt we'll even find that out.
There's a 9 years old Semiwiki discussion thread about the respin. I'm wondering to what degree those factors discussed are related to the delay of Sapphire Rapids.
Dear Readers, I have been hearing on re-spins of chips. Many companies have gone through this painful phase because of several reason/defects. Nobody likes re-spin for chip as it is expensive and time consuming! Companies have a fear to loose time to market for their products because of this...
