Intel Announces 'In-Silicon' Fixes For Meltdown And Spectre Coming This Year, 10nm Update

[LASER_oneXM]

Here Comes The Silicon Patch

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich started the call with a short restatement of the company's commitment to security, which sounded very similar to his statements in the CES 2018 keynote.

Krzanich later said the company would begin to ship products with "in-silicon" fixes for the vulnerabilities this year. He did not elaborate, but logically this means that the company will include these fixes in the 10nm generation of products. Krzanich also later stated that the company expects to continue developing its 14nm products in 2018, so we could see yet another round of 14nm processors (sigh). Of course, one could speculate that these chips might also have in-silicon patches for the vulnerabilities.

Intel's newer chips (post-Broadwell) support a PCID (Post-Context Identifier) feature that helps reduce the performance impact of the Meltdown patches on newer hardware. Intel's plans to institute in-silicon fixes could reduce the impact even further, or perhaps remove it entirely. That's a sorely needed feature for a company that is reeling from the never-ending onslaught of press coverage around the vulnerabilities. We're reaching out to Intel for more details about the new silicon fix.

 

[ForgottenSeer 58943]

This pretty much guarantees Intel knew 'long ago' about their backdoor. It means they had a contingency plan in place, pre-engineered solution ready to launch.

Also, did you see this?

Intel also re-stated that it shipped some low-volume 10nm products last year, though again, the company did not provide any specifics about the number of units or the customer.

Sounds like specific entities, likely govt. got 'fixed' chips before the disclosure... Intel sucks. Intel can die. I will never buy an Intel chip again. I don't care what my alternatives are, they'll be better than Intel.