Newly discovered bug: Intel stops shipment of Sapphire Rapids MCC Xeon CPUs

It is reported that Intel has stopped shipments of some Xeon Sapphire Rapids CPUs due to a recently discovered bug, as some of these CPUs are affected by a bug related to timing disruptions within the product line. Tom’s Hardware has also noticed a drop in shipments of Intel’s Sapphire Rapids CPUs, and the company has issued the following statement regarding the details of the issue:

We became aware of an issue on a subset of 4th Generation Intel Xeon Medium Core Count Processors (SPR-MCC) that could interrupt system operation under certain conditions and are actively investigating. This issue was not observed when running commercially available software, and other 4th Generation Intel Xeon processor SKUs (i.e., XCC and HBM) have not exhibited the issue.

Out of an abundance of caution, we did temporarily pause some SPR MCC shipments while we gained confidence in the expected firmware mitigation and expect to release remaining shipments shortly

Intel Spokesperson to Tom’s Hardware

Intel says disruptions can occur under certain conditions, though the company has not released full details. However, Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis has looked into the problem in more detail and found that the bug is limited to the MCC variant of Sapphire Rapids and that other models are not affected. In his analysis of the problem, Patel found that the glitches can occur due to interruptions in processor timing and can affect both the 2-socket and 4-socket variants. The expert commented as follows:

Intel has faced another crop of design issues related to Sapphire Rapids MCC, the highest volume version of Sapphire Rapids. The 2-socket and 4-socket SKUs have paused shipments due to a timing issue since mid-June.

As usual, Intel has not issued a clear statement on the situation and instead claims that the issue at hand only affects a “subset” of the SoC. Unfortunately, the company did not provide any information on when the problem will be fixed or when shipments can resume. However, Intel assures that the bug will not affect the performance of the CPUs and emphasizes that this bug was not present during the original validation. Tom’s Hardware reports that the timing issue, if it affects the CPUs, can be solved comparatively easily with a firmware update. Fortunately, the bug is not so severe that already shipped units need to be replaced.

Currently, Intel offers three different variants of the processor with the Sapphire Rapids. The XCC model features a high number of cores and is designed for performance-intensive applications. The MCC variant is intended for the mainstream market, but is affected by a bug. Finally, there is the HBM variant, which has a large HBM2e memory stack and is thus suitable for applications with high memory requirements. Intel has stopped deliveries of the processors since mid-June due to the bug. So far, the company has not issued an official statement about it. However, we assume that Intel will publish more information in the near future.

Source: Tom’s Hardware via wccftech