Intel Details Cascade Lake, Hardware Mitigations for Meltdown, Spectre

Ever since Meltdown and Spectre were disclosed, Intel’s various customers have been asking how long it would take for hardware fixes to these problems to ship. The fixes will deploy with Cascade Lake, Intel’s next server platform due later this year, but the company is finally lifting the lid on some of those improvements and security enhancements at Hot Chips this week.

Variant 1 will still require software-level protections, while Variant 2 (that’s the “classic” Spectre attack) will require a mixture of hardware and software protection. Variant 3 (Meltdown) will be blocked in hardware, 3a (discovered by ARM) patched via firmware, with Variant 5 (Foreshadow) also patched in hardware. Firmware fixes can be treated as equivalent to hardware since the new systems that’ll launch with Cascade Lake will include them by default.

Overall demand for these parts is expected to be robust, given how rapidly the IT industry is shifting to cloud computing. Any talk of fallout from the initial disclosures has been limited, and there’s no sign that anyone has treated the issue as a reason to jump ship from Intel and adopt its competitors’ hardware. If ARM or AMD are seeing an uptick in adoptions based on these security issues, they have yet to say so.

Continue reading

AMD’s Reliance on TSMC Isn’t Harming the Company’s Growth Prospects

It has been difficult to buy high-end PC components for nearly six months. There are a number of reasons for this, including pandemic-related impacts, the related surge in demand for all computing hardware, and supply shortages. A lot of eyeballs have been trained on foundries like TSMC, to the point that national governments have put…

AMD Discloses a Spectre-Like Vulnerability in Zen 3 CPUs

AMD has disclosed a potential security vulnerability on its Zen 3 CPUs with similarities to the Spectre attack from several years ago, but the company believes the risk is minimal.

Intel, Researchers Debate Whether New Spectre-Type Vulnerabilities Exist

Researchers are claiming to have found a new type of Spectre attack that bypasses all existing protections, but that framing isn't well supported.

LG Announces Monitor with Crazy 16:18 Aspect Ratio

LG's new panel eschews the ultrawide Zeitgeist for a monitor that's basically a really big square.