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Published: January 26, 2018 | Source: PC World | Author: Mark Campbell

Intel plans products with “In-Silicon” fixes for Meltdown and Spectre for 2018 release

Intel plans products with

Intel plans products with “In-Silicon” fixes for Meltdown and Spectre for 2018 release

During the company’s Q4 Investors call, Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich revealed plans to release silicon with built-in mitigations for both Spectre and Meltdown. What is more noteworthy is Krzanich’s statement that we will see those products “appearing later this year”. 

Sadly Intel did not elaborate any further on these planned “silicon-based” fixes and whether or not these fixes will merely alleviate the issues presented by both exploits or if it will close the door on them entirely. Changes that lessen the performance impact of current exploit mitigations seems more likely, as a true fix would require significant changes to both speculative execution and branch prediction, changes that would be difficult to implement in products that are less than a year from launch. 

It seems likely that these fixes will appear in late 2018, with Krzanich stating that “I’ve assigned some of the very best minds at Intel to work through this [issue]”. Intel does not expect to be affected much by Spectre and Meltdown moving into 2018, with the company only seeing minor changes in their sales forecasts.  

 

     Security is a top priority for Intel, foundational to our products, and it’s critical to the expanse of our data-centric strategy.

Our near-term focus is on delivering high-quality mitigations to protect our customers’ infrastructure from these exploits. We’re working to create silicon-based changes to future products, that will directly address the Spectre and Meltdown threats in hardware. And those products will begin appearing later this year. 

 

Intel plans products with  

At this time it seems likely that these “silicon-based” fixes will be included in Intel’s upcoming 10nm products, which are expected to release in late 2018 after a ramp-up of Intel’s 10nm product node. Intel will need to clarify exactly what these changes will accomplish, as right now the company’s response to the matter is unclear. 

AMD’s financial results are due to release in around five days, making for an interesting comparison between each company’s response to these security vulnerabilities. When will AMD be able to address Spectre in Silicon? 

You can join the discussion on Intel’s plans to introduce “silicon-based” fixes for Spectre and Meltdown on the OC3D Forums. 

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