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AMD and ARM Team Up

Posted by Soulskill on from the dynamic-duo dept.

Vigile writes "Today AMD is making an announcement that is the first step in a drastic transition for the company by integrating an ARM Cortex A5 processor on the same die with upcoming Fusion APUs. Starting in late 2013, all AMD APUs (processors that are combinations of x86 cores and Radeon SIMD arrays) will also integrate an ARM Cortex A5 processor to handle security for online transactions, banking, identity protection and DRM integration. The A5 is the smallest Cortex processor available, and that would make sense to use it in a full APU so it will not take up more than 10-15 square mm of die space. This marks the first time AMD has licensed ARM technology and while many people were speculating a pure ARM+Radeon hybrid, this move today is being described as the 'first step' for AMD down a new road of dexterity as an IP-focused technology company with their GPU technology as 'the crown jewel.' So while today's announcement might focus on using ARM processors for security purposes, the future likely holds much more these two partners."

24 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Fan-fucking-tastic. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So AMD and ARM team up, and the product of their blissful union is an on-die TPM?

    Thanks for nothing, guys.

    1. Re:Fan-fucking-tastic. by sexconker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So AMD and ARM team up, and the product of their blissful union is an on-die TPM?

      Thanks for nothing, guys.

      Basically. The only ones who will ever make use of it are DRM assholes.

      They make it sound like a feature by talking about "security for online transactions", "banking", and "identity protection", but no one will ever use it for that.
      It's dead silicon until Windows is updated to recognizes it and allow DRM schemes to tap into it.

    2. Re:Fan-fucking-tastic. by TimothyDavis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      One of the problems that AMD is facing is that OEMs use their CPUs in a value system - where across the board features are cut. This hurts AMD because many of these systems lack TPMs, which pretty much blocks them from many enterprise deployments, as Bitlocker and DirectAccess pretty much require a TPM. By creating a soft TPM, AMD is working around the BOM cost of a hardware TPM.

    3. Re:Fan-fucking-tastic. by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Bingo! None of the banks or online transactions will use it because it isn't cross platform and AMD doesn't have a big enough share of the CPU market so the only ones that will use it is those who want DRM on top of their DRM.

      I've been a loyal AMD CPU customer but if this is the best they can do we are SOL. Thuban was the last good CPU they've put out, the whole Bulldozer design is a netburst sized fail, the Bobcats were good but they haven't updated them in ages and now THIS, this is the best they can come up with?

      I have a sick feeling in my stomach we may have just been shown the beginning of the end guys, AMD may end up just like Nvidia, selling GPUs with ARM chips for mobile which will leave Intel standing alone in X86 and if that is the case then we are royally fucked. I don't know how many here remember but once upon a time Intel stood alone and the price of chips was bug fucking crazy, so i can only hope someone at AMD grows a brain, gets rid of the "crippled half core" faildozer design and goes back to the drawing board because more DRM isn't a way to get folks buying your chips AMD.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    4. Re:Fan-fucking-tastic. by Fjandr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      While I won't be happy to see it used for more DRM, it actually could prove quite beneficial to have increased general access to a chip which should be usable as a crypto coprocessor.

      Crypto offloading cards are pretty expensive, and this would allow for modules to be rewritten on AMD+Linux boxes to dedicate SSL and like functions without increasing the general processor load.

    5. Re:Fan-fucking-tastic. by Suiggy · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's not a mere TPM solution. It's a Cortex A5 core. AMD has been pushing their Fusion Systems Architecture for heterogeneous SoCs, so it's likely that the Cortex A5 will be programmable by developers through OpenCL. The TPM thing is just what the marketing people envision as one of its uses, but it could be used for anything... it's left up to developers imaginations to find something more worthwhile than TPM.

      You could use it as a dedicated audio decoder and DSP, for example, as the OpenCL vector math functions will map directly to the NEON SIMD instructions.

  2. I don't like the sound of this. by BanHammor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, they have these universal processing units, and the ARM part of them is doing fuckall but DRM? I can't exactly say "yay".

    1. Re:I don't like the sound of this. by Jeng · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Gotta start somewhere.

      So today they may be writing programs to use the extra ARM core for DRM, but I don't see where these are limited to just DRM.

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
    2. Re:I don't like the sound of this. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Informative

      Modules intended for DRM purposes are commonly limited to those purposes because running extra code, especially code from random untrusted people, makes your DRM more vulnerable. In this case, AMD seems to be incorporating ARM's "Trustzone" stuff. That does support running vendor-customized software within the 'secure' region; but the suggested implementable does not make that user-modifiable. The rest of it is the usual morass of DRM 'goodies': memory locations 'protected' from access by non 'trusted' software, device unique master key, etc, etc.

      That's pretty much why you would have a separate DRM module at all, when you already have a perfectly good x86 core to work with...

      It is interesting that AMD appears to be throwing their hat in with this ARM stuff, rather than the 'Trusted Computing Group's TPM, available from a number of vendors on x86s already; but the expected use cases are every bit as malignant...

  3. They should be called AAA. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why not rename the whole business to AAA, for ARM, AMD, ATI?

    This would also make them the first chip maker in the phone book.

    1. Re:They should be called AAA. by SJHillman · · Score: 5, Funny

      Because then people would be calling them for a tow truck

    2. Re:They should be called AAA. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      what's a phone book?

    3. Re:They should be called AAA. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not quite the bulldozer you were looking for..

    4. Re:They should be called AAA. by Jeng · · Score: 4, Funny

      Is tow truck after piledriver?

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
    5. Re:They should be called AAA. by Jeng · · Score: 4, Insightful

      what's a phone book?

      It's that lump of wood pulp that is left on your doorstep once a year. It is completely filled with advertisements and phone numbers, but no reviews at all.

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
  4. OMG TPM by Chemisor · · Score: 4, Informative

    Before you start flaming about DRM and TPM taking over your computer and all, please remember that all TPM chips currently available allow you to install your own keys. This hardware root of trust allows you to verify that your Linux installation has not been tampered with. It also is a good place to store hard disk encryption keys, because the TPM chip makes it extremely difficult to do brute force attacks on your password. I simply can not imagine why anybody would intentionally buy a modern computer without these wonderful capabilities.

    1. Re:OMG TPM by 0123456 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Before you start flaming about DRM and TPM taking over your computer and all, please remember that all TPM chips currently available allow you to install your own keys.

      And once you're tied to using them, they'll stop allowing you to install your own keys.

      Vendor lockin FTW.

    2. Re:OMG TPM by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I simply can not imagine why anybody would intentionally buy a modern computer without these wonderful capabilities.

      Ever since TPM was created, we're always just a few bits and bytes away from having it leveraged against us, by them.
      And by "us" I mean "the computer users."
      By "them" I mean "the hardware manufacturers and software/media companies."

      Example: The newest motherboards don't need the ability to disable trusted boot. Heck, it'd have been easier to not include it!
      We're more or less at the mercy of a small number of companies and their design decisions.
      Worse, we have no real power other than social pressure.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    3. Re:OMG TPM by 0123456 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You have the power to not purchase locked down motherboards.

      Of course once Windows requires that all systems are locked down before it runs, there'll be a remarkable lack of affordable motherboards that will run any other operating system. Nor will you be able to buy a Windows machine and install another operating system instead.

      Anyone who thinks this isn't intended to create vendor lockin is incredibly naive.

  5. Playstation 4? by dicobalt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sounds like a console chip to me.

  6. A5 is the smallest Cortex? by draconx · · Score: 4, Informative
    From the summary, which also appears in TFA:

    The A5 is the smallest Cortex processor available

    Really? I figured that the Cortex-M0 would be smaller. The M0 doesn't even have a cache. Indeed, ARM's Cortex-M0 product page agrees, saying:

    The ARM Cortex(tm)-M0 processor is the smallest ARM processor available.

    so it's not clear why the article is calling the A5 the smallest?

    1. Re:A5 is the smallest Cortex? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It is the smallest core with TrustZone support. The article is wrong.

  7. No Internet without TPM by tepples · · Score: 3, Insightful

    please remember that all TPM chips currently available allow you to install your own keys.

    Which won't help if both the cable company and the DSL company start using Trusted Network Connect to control home customers' access to their networks. In such a case, you wouldn't be able to get Internet service with your own key on the TPM.

  8. Re:what by Chuckstar · · Score: 3, Informative

    Now that I've read more, I think I was only partially correct. It looks more like the main reason to go with ARM is that there was a fully-baked hardware/software solution already in place around ARM's implementation of TPM. So AMD could sort of glom on to the whole thing.