Intel In-Field Scan Functionality Being Extended With Emerald Rapids

Now that Intel 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" shipped and the initial Linux support is all aligned, recently there has been an uptick in activity around Emerald Rapids and even Granite Rapids as its successor along with the Sierra Forest support. On the EMR front, the latest Linux driver activity is extending the In-Field Scan (IFS) driver for additional testing capabilities.

Intel introduced In-Field Scan with Sapphire Rapids and upstreamed the Linux driver for allowing new silicon testing capabilities to spot faulty CPUs prior to commissioning in the data center or testing over time after deployment to see if there are any processor silicon issues developing that aren't caught by other ECC or RAS checks.

With Emerald Rapids, there will be further testing capabilities with In-Field Scan. A patch series sent out on Monday adds array BIST test support. The patch cover letter sums up this new Emerald Rapids capability as:

Array BIST is a new type of core test introduced under the Intel Infield Scan (IFS) suite of tests.

Emerald Rapids (EMR) is the first CPU to support Array BIST. Array BIST performs tests on some portions of the core logic such as caches and register files. These are different portions of the silicon compared to the parts tested by Scan at Field (SAF).

Unlike SAF, Array BIST doesn't require any test content to be loaded.

With Emerald Rapids expected to ship later this year, Intel's open-source engineers are busy working to ensure that all of the new feature code and support is squared away well ahead of launch.