Intel Updates ISA Manual: New Instructions for Alder Lake, also BF16 for Sapphire Rapids

As with any processor vendor, having a detailed list of what the processor does and how to optimize for it is important. Helping programmers also plan for what's coming is also vital. To that end, we often get glimpses of what is coming in future products by keeping track of these updates. Not only does it give detail on the new instructions, but it often verifies code names for products that haven't 'officially' been recognized. Intel's latest update to its ISA Extensions Reference manual does just this, confirming Alder Lake as a future product, and identifies what new instructions are coming in future platforms. Perhaps the biggest news of this is actually the continuation of BFLOAT16 support, originally supposed to be Cooper Lake only (and bearing in mind, Cooper Lake will have a limited launch), but will now also be included in the upcoming Sapphire Rapids generation, set for deployment in the Aurora supercomputer in late 2021.