The 4th Generation Intel Xeon hits the market early

4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable Processors. (Image credit- Intel)

Intel officially revealed its 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors (code-named Sapphire Rapids) on Jan. 10, 2023, for customers of data centers all over the world. Intel produced its highest-quality Xeon product ever after years of dedication and concentration, and the company is getting a good response and the highest-ever level of partner and customer support. A new Intel leadership product was released on launch day with significant performance improvements thanks to industry-leading accelerators, an increased core count, and better performance per watt. The market's robust new product has accelerated consumer adoption of these new technologies. Intel has implemented the most ever design wins for any Xeon family in the eight weeks since launch, as well as the most ever platforms that are ready and shipping in this limited time to market. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="3751"] Image credit- Business Wire[/caption] The top 10 cloud service providers (CSPs) are currently deploying cloud instances, and they will continue to do so through 2023. All significant original equipment makers (OEMs) and original design manufacturers (ODMs) are shipping systems today. A robust supply of Xeon products for the entirety of 2023 will foster and support all this customer success by meeting customer demand across a wide variety of crucial use cases and practical workloads. Lisa Spelman, the corporate Vice President and General Manager of Intel Xeon Products said that "Launching 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors was the first of many moments you'll see from Intel this year that will showcase our roadmap confidence and define our market readiness," She further added,  "We're showing the industry that we are executing with consistency and delivering on our commitments to customers." Communications service providers (CoSPs) who are constructing their 5G networks using vRANs are intended to use these 4th Gen Xeon SoCs. According to Intel, the company's FlexRAN software is already operating on Intel Xeon processors in 99% of current vRAN deployments. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Image credit- Crast.net[/caption] The new Xeon Scalable processors incorporate specialized instruction extensions called Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) for vRAN that enable the 4th Gen Xeon processors to enable twice the vRAN traffic capacity within the same power envelope when compared to the company's 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable devices. The 4th Gen Xeon SoCs will continue to run this software unchanged and can deliver power and performance benefits solely from the generation-on-generation improvement. Additionally, Intel asserts that these extensions eliminate the need for companion vRAN accelerator cards, resulting in a further 20% reduction in power usage and a lower total cost of ownership for vRAN (TCO). Although the accelerated 4th Gen Xeon Scalable SoCs can execute existing FlexRAN code without modification, a new version of the FlexRAN software is necessary to fully employ the extensions. According to Intel, these adjustments were made to its FlexRAN software to enable a variety of 5G deployment scenarios, such as sub-6GHz, mmWave, small-cell, and private wireless networks. Also read: Android 15 code-named Android V, What does that mean? Through a set of updated software development tools, libraries, and software kits, the business is also assisting independent software vendors (ISVs) in their efforts to modify their software so that it can benefit from the new vRAN extensions.