AMD and ARM Team Up

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."

Comments

Fan-fucking-tastic.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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

Thanks for nothing, guys.

Re:Fan-fucking-tastic.

[TimothyDavis]

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.

I don't like the sound of this.

[BanHammor]

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

Re:I don't like the sound of this.

[Jeng]

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.

Re:I don't like the sound of this.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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...

They should be called AAA.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:They should be called AAA.

[SJHillman]

Because then people would be calling them for a tow truck

Re:They should be called AAA.

[Anonymous Coward]

what's a phone book?

Re:They should be called AAA.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite the bulldozer you were looking for..

Re:They should be called AAA.

[Jeng]

Is tow truck after piledriver?

Re:They should be called AAA.

[Jeng]

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.

OMG TPM

[Chemisor]

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.

Re:OMG TPM

[TubeSteak]

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.

Playstation 4?

[dicobalt]

Sounds like a console chip to me.

A5 is the smallest Cortex?

[draconx]

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?

Re:A5 is the smallest Cortex?

[Anonymous Coward]

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