Intel's answer to ARM: Customisable x86 chips with HIDDEN POWERS

With new CEO Brian Krzanich and new president Renée James in control of Intel, all kinds of changes are very likely in store: the chip giant wants to expand beyond its dominance in PCs (a declining market) and servers (one that is profitable but not growing very much) to other aspects of the computing landscape. And one such …

[Richard Boyce]

Security

End customers should know all that they're getting. Having hidden features that some third party can secretly exploit is a security threat to both the customer and to the manufacturer.

If there were a zero-day exploit that made use of such a feature, the results could be devastating for both customers and Intel. People still remember the damage done by the floating point bug. They'd never forget a security vulnerability that was secretly hidden in a processor.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: Security

If there were a zero-day exploit that made use of such a feature, the results could be devastating for both customers and Intel.

That seems to be a mighty big "if".

While a system relying on those silicon extensions could have issues if the extension were flawed it is difficult to see how faulty silicon could be used to create an exploit elsewhere. The flawed extension would have to affect something else the system relied upon for security to achieve an exploit through its use.

You could argue that every part of any implementation within silicon is an exploit just waiting to happen - and that may be so - but it seems a case of confusing threat with risk when it comes to how likely that would be.

[psyq]

Re: Security

Normally, additional features that command a premium are fused-out in 'common' silicon and enabled only for special SKUs.

To temporarily enable fused-out feature you would need several things none of which are present in the computers employed in ordinary businesses. And even if you had all the tooling and clearances (which is next to impossible) the process of temporary enabling is not going to be unnoticed. Hardly something that can be used for exploitation. There are much easier avenues - including more and more rare kernel-level exploits.

[BillG]

Re: Security

Having hidden features that some third party can secretly exploit is a security threat to both the customer and to the manufacturer.

Nope. This isn't like software. More often than not the feature is locked out, often at the mask level. And there are other sneaky ways to prevent unauthorized use. This has been going on for years. The difference is, while software engineers can't stop talking, hardware engineers don't talk.

BTW, when you add features to a core like this it's called a Microcontroller.

Or, another sneaky thing we like to do with microcontrollers/SoC is I offer a high-end, high priced chip with the cool feature, while also having the same feature on a cheaper chip BUT undocumented. So I have people buying the cheaper device from me using the expensive feature (ripping me off). After two years I mod the cheap device so the advanced feature isn't available anymore. Customers call to complain, I tell them "Hey, that feature isn't on that device". Now they are forced, forced to pay more money for the more expensive device! REVENGE!

[Christian Berger]

Missing the long term problem

Sure, they are now near copying ARMs approach and try to appeal to handset makers in that way, but that's not the long term problem. We are now in the "home computer" age of mobile computers. Every manufacturer has a totally different platform. If you are lucky you get some dedicated port of some operating system (i.e. Android) which won't be supported and which you will be stuck with.

In the home computing age the IBM-compatible PC arrived, sweeping away its competitors. Suddenly you had a machine that could run different operating systems, where you could upgrade the operating system just by booting from a different diskette.

If Intel wants to succeed in the long run, they must bring real advantages over ARM. For example they could create a SoC with a little boot ROM which allows booting from an SD-card. That ROM could also have routines to access the hardware, kinda like a BIOS. (But please not as complex as UEFI)

One of Intel's strengths in the 1970s and early 1980s was that they provided full developer support. For example you could buy their development system and it would include a full Pascal compiler, while the other vendors still required you to hand-assemble your code. Intel should try to do the equivalent of that today. Make it easy to build a mobile device and slap your software onto it, just like it's easy to slap a new operating system onto a PC.

They wouldn't be successful with it at first, but once all those tiny Chinese manufacturers get a hold of this they will have conquered the mobile devices market.

[AndrueC]

Definitely an old practice. The Z80 had a whole slew of undocumented instructions relating mainly to the index registers. Probably just an artefact of the way the prefix instruction worked though rather than a deliberate attempt to release them at a later date.

[JimmyPage]

Z80 ?

IIRC, wasn't one of the dangers of using undocumented opcodes that they could vary across fabrications ? Just because a Zilog processor worked didn't mean an OEM one would ?

[AndrueC]

Re: Z80 ?

Yeah, they used to warn that. I've no idea if it's true but there were so many variations on the chip that it's entirely possible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Z80 ?

" there were so many variations on the chip that it's entirely possible."

And how many second sources do you think Intel is proposing to permit for this technology?

[John Gamble]

Re: Z80 ?

Yup, and as AndrueC said, "they" (in my experience assembly language instructors) would warn against using them. There was a certain "I know the secret code!" thrill about knowing them, but I'm not a teenager anymore, and getting code -- especially assembly code -- to work everywhere soon hammered any idea of using them out of my coding practice.

[ThomH]

The Z80 (and 6502, and others) undocumented opcodes were merely relics of the decoding process — they weren't intended to be hidden. The reason they became well known was that one or two of them were found to do useful things in computers where a single supplier had provided the same model of CPU for the entire production run.

For example, there's 'shift left and insert a 1 in the least significant bit' on the Z80 that can be used to make a faster scroll in some cases and to help with certain methods of sprite compositing. It's a relic of shift right arithmetic and fills a pretty obvious numerical hole in the instruction map. So if you know that every 48k Spectrum uses a Z80 with that instruction then why not use it?

So this is unlike the classic situation because the motivation is different — the new operations are hidden on purpose.

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point of Intel's manufacturing prowess is that there ARE no chips with "Unusual frequency and temperature characteristics". They are ALL THE SAME! . So there is no (or very little) bin sorting.

If you're not in control of your process, there is a chance that you'll wake up one morning with a FAB that makes chips you can't sell.

The days of Bin1 = 12MHz are over.

I'm ex-Intel from the 1980s and 90s and in my parts box is a 40pin DIP labelled "8086 - FAST".

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel doesn't really get it. It's not about them producing x86 custom chips for different customers, it's about licensing the IP and letting customers put the production out to tender and taking advantage of the marketplace.

Intel just doesn't want to lose the monopoly they have in producing x86 CPUs using genuine Intel designs.

[John Smith 19]

"Intel just doesn't want to lose the monopoly they have in producing x86 CPUs using genuine Intel designs."

At the genuine Intel price.

[BornToWin]

Intel is getting desperate

With AMD's customized APUs winning all three gaming consoles plus a lot of other market segments including some that use ARM chippies, Intel has fallen behind by several years. It's good to see AMD deliver better tech at lower prices.

[Alan Firminger]

Is it really a good business model ?

It looks like a lot of work for each customer. As the versions proliferate then things can get extremely complicated.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Waxman really say "and et cetera"?

[TeeCee]

Golden screwdriver.

I thought that referred to the practice of the extra bits being available on all chips, but only turned on when you paid for the privilege?

This would appear to be more of a custom ASIC approach, where you pay up front for a custom chip, only where said ASIC happens to be a shonky old x86 CPU with some extra sequins sewn onto its frock.