Mizuho Securities: Intel's data center chip share will continue to decline

According to a report by Mizuho Securities in Japan, the mass production time of Intel's next-generation Xeon server chip "Sapphire Rapids" may be postponed again, and it may be in the third quarter of this year before it can be mass-produced.

Production of Intel's third-generation Xeon server chip ,Ice Lake," will grow 50 percent this year, the report said. At the same time, in order to maintain market share, Intel will not increase the price of Ice Lake. This approach will help prevent AMD from continuing to storm the data center chip market.

However, Mizuho Securities quoted Dolly Wu, vice president of Inspur Systems, as pointing out that Intel's fourth-generation Xeon chip Sapphire Rapids, which was originally scheduled to go on sale in the second quarter, may now be delayed until the third quarter. Mizuho Securities believes that sapphire Rapids has increased material costs significantly, affecting Intel production, and the company's market share of data center chips will continue to decline.

Sapphire Rapids uses the "Intel 7" 7nm process and uses EMIB technology, combined with the substrate and interposer( interposer), the output and delay are better than outsourced testing, the disadvantage is the higher cost. Although Intel handles most of the packaging operations itself, there is a shortage of key raw materials, affecting production. Since Sapphire Rapids is Intel's first Xeon chip to fully adopt EMIB technology, the price is expected to increase.

Dolly Wu, vice president of Inspur Systems, predicts that AMD's third-generation EPYC processor Milan and fourth-generation EPYC Genoa will continue to outperform Intel, helping AMD sustain its explosive growth in the data center.

However, AMD's supply shortage is more serious than Intel's, making IT unable to seize more markets faster. At the same time, TSMC continues to increase production by 7 nanometers, AMD's 5-nanometer Genoa will also be on the market this year, and the battle situation of server chips will become more white-hot. (Proofreading/Nori)