Intel Corporation

Wojciech S Powiertowski

Sergiu D Ghetie

Neeraj S Upasani

Sagar V Dalvi

Mohan J Kumar

Jeanne Guillory

Murugasamy K Nachimuthu

Scott P Bobholz

Chukwunenye S Nnebe

Jason W Brandt

Joseph Nuzman

Lihu Rappoport

Robert S Chappell

Deepak K Gupta

Jared Warner Stark, Iv

Rodrigo Branco

Alberto J Munoz

Ariel Sabba

Scott J Cape

Yair Berger

Gilad Holzstein

David J Harriman

Hisham Shafi

Yu-Yuan Chen

Arkadiusz Berent

David T Mayo

Vasuki Chilukuri

Srikanth Varadarajan

Vinila Rose

Won Lee

Yogesh Bijlani

Shaila R Murty

Srihari Narayanan

Francisco Orlando C Arbildo

Neeraj Upasani

Methods and apparatuses relating to mitigations for speculative execution side channels are described. Speculative execution hardware and environments that utilize the mitigations are also described. For example, three indirect branch control mechanisms and their associated hardware are discussed herein: (i) indirect branch restricted speculation (IBRS) to restrict speculation of indirect branches, (ii) single thread indirect branch predictors (STIBP) to prevent indirect branch predictions from being controlled by a sibling thread, and (iii) indirect branch predictor barrier (IBPB) to prevent indirect branch predictions after the barrier from being controlled by software executed before the barrier.

Apparatuses and methods for speculative execution side channel mitigation

Embodiments are generally directed apparatuses, methods, techniques and so forth to receive a sled manifest comprising identifiers for physical resources of a sled, receive results of an authentication and validation operations performed to authenticate and validate the physical resources of the sled, determine whether the results of the authentication and validation operations indicate the physical resources are authenticate or not authenticate. Further and in response to the determination that the results indicate the physical resources are authenticated, permit the physical resources to process a workload, and in response to the determination that the results indicate the physical resources are not authenticated, prevent the physical resources from processing the workload.

Techniques to verify and authenticate resources in a data center computer environment

A device includes a microcontroller, memory including secure memory to store a private key, a set of registers, and an authentication engine. The set of registers includes a write mailbox register and a read mailbox register, and message data is to be written to the write mailbox register by a host system. The message data includes at least a portion of a challenge request, and the challenge request includes a challenge by the host system to authenticity of the device. The authentication engine generates a response to the challenge, where the response includes data to identify attributes of the device and a signature generated using the private key. The authentication engine causes at least a portion of the response to be written to the read mailbox register to be read by the host system.

Device authentication

A processor can be configured to access boot firmware from a remote location independent from use of a chipset. After a processor powers-on or reboots, the processor can execute microcode. The microcode will cause the processor to train a link with a remote device. The remote device can provide the processor with access to boot firmware. The processor can copy the boot firmware to the processor's cache or memory. The processor will attempt to authenticate the boot firmware. If the boot firmware is authenticated, the processor executes the copy of the boot firmware.

Techniques for processor boot-up

Techniques and apparatuses for issuance of license upgrades for hardware components in the field, as well as the hardware components, are described. In one embodiment, for example an apparatus may include processor circuitry and memory in communication with the processor circuitry, wherein the memory contains a configuration data block and license data block, the configuration data block being read from the memory via a licensing apparatus and the licensing data block being written to the memory by the licensing apparatus. The processor may include executable code to process the licensing data block to facilitate an upgrade of the capabilities of the processor circuitry.

System and method for reconfiguring and deploying soft stock-keeping units

Dynamically configurable server platforms and associated apparatus and methods. A server platform including a plurality of CPUs installed in respective sockets may be dynamically configured as multiple single-socket servers and as a multi-socket server. The CPUs are connected to a platform manager component comprising an SoC including one or more processors and an embedded FPGA. Following a platform reset, an FPGA image is loaded, dynamically configuring functional blocks and interfaces on the platform manager. The platform manager also includes pre-defined functional blocks and interfaces. During platform initialization the dynamically-configured functional blocks and interfaces are used to initialize the server platform, while both the pre-defined and dynamically-configured functional blocks and interfaces are used to support run-time operations. The server platform may be used in conventional rack architectures or implemented in a disaggregated rack architecture under which the single-socket and/or multi-socket servers are dynamically composed to employ disaggregated resources, such as memory, storage, and accelerators.

Self-morphing server platforms

Growing community of inventors

Beaverton, OR, United States of America

Wojciech S Powiertowski