Intel CPU of 2020 delayed? Intel rejects rumors

Intel has rejected some print reports according to which the whole roadmap of server products would have suffered a major shift. The Semiaccurate site supported this thesis, followed by a report by Wells Fargo analyst Aaron Rakers, who, in addition to resuming what was reported on the site, cited unspecified “industrial sources”.

The Santa Clara house is expected in 2020 to renew the server offer with a new 14 nanometer design in the first half of the year (Cooper Lake), followed by first 10-nanometer Ice Lake project in the second half. The US company has issued a note to Tom's Hardware USA colleagues in which it reaffirms the roadmap and timing:

“Intel remains on schedule for the delivery of the Whitley platform, starting from the production of Cooper Lake in the first half of 2020, followed by the production of Ice Lake in the second quarter of 2020. We are also well on our way to succeeding Whitley with Sapphire Rapids in 2021“.

This statement echoes what was said by Murty Renduchintala, head of Technology, Systems Architecture & Client Group and chief engineering officer of Intel, during the UBS Global TMT Conference to those who asked him about the company's ability to compete with AMD now that the latter has an advantage in terms of production processes.

“[…] And certainly by the end of 2020 we will come out with Ice Lake, our first 10-nanometer server solution that brings important benefits in terms of performance per core. So ultimately I think that we have an aggressive roadmap that we think it is good enough to deal with the competitive scenario“. To a second question about the timing related to Ice Lake, Renduchintala reconfirmed its debut during the second half of next year.

There has been a lot of talk in recent years about Intel's delay in fine-tuning the 10-nanometer production process and the impact on competitiveness that this has had in the face of an AMD that has returned to the scene since 2017 with a solid roadmap and great value.

If the future server offerings are to be delayed, the problems could be even more serious for Intel, given that AMD expects to reach 10% of the server market by mid 2020. Intel's roadmap server has seen delays in the past, including Cooper Lake. In August 2018, the project was scheduled for 2019, but in May of this year the company changed its debut date by moving it to 2020.

This means that today's Intel statement refers to the roadmap released in May 2019. It is interesting to note that the slide reports that shipments of Ice Lake products ready for the market (non-samples) will begin in the first half of 2020, while recent statements Intel claims that production will begin in the second half of 2020.

To close, there is another slide shown at the HPC Developer Conference in Denver last month in which Intel reiterated the arrival of Cooper Lake and Ice Lake in 2020 and added the arrival of Sapphire Rapids, the project that we will see together with the “Ponte Vecchio” GPU in the Aurora supercomputer, in 2021.

The last two roadmaps, the manager's comments from last week, and today's statement report that Cooper Lake, Ice Lake and Sapphire Rapids are following the roadmap. The saying “trust is good, but not trusting is better”, however, seems perfectly appropriate when it comes to Intel's 10 nanometers. Too many have seen and heard. Until the shipments of the chips officially start, the doubt will always remain.

The “devil”, however, could be in the details: given that we generally speak of semesters, it is not said that for Semiaccurate delays and the analyst they mean something like a slip of Ice Lake from July to December. Everything is possible, but for now we are talking about the official words of Intel and as always we will keep you updated in case of developments.