Intel’s new 13th and 14th Gen Core processors, “Raptor Lake” and “Raptor Lake Refresh,” are experiencing issues due to their Ring Bus getting damaged from high voltages. According to sources at Moore’s Law is Dead, Intel engineers believe the Ring Bus is being affected because it uses the same rail as the performance (P-Cores) and efficiency (E-Cores). The processors needed high voltages to compete with AMD’s Zen 4 platform.
The first source claims that this issue was a result of pushing the processors too hard, and it could also affect Intel’s upcoming “Barlett Lake.” However, “Meteor Lake” isn’t affected. The second source, an Intel design engineer, confirmed concerns about damaging the Ring Bus with high voltages during Alder Lake development and stated that Raptor Lake was rushed through the design and validation process.
The third source from Intel Foundry Services reported that Raptor Lake production in Arizona was completed extremely quickly but also took place in other locations. However, a serious oxidation issue occurred between March and June 2023 due to an HVAC system failure. The event was severe enough that Intel’s senior vice president of manufacturing, Keyvan Esfarjani, had to make decisions about discarding affected wafers, which cost as much as a Model X car each. The impact on “Sapphire Rapids” yields is unclear but may not have been resolved yet.
Source: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/99575/intel-cooking-the-ring-bus-on-dying-13th-and-14th-gen-core-cpus-says-leaker/index.html