HECTOR-V: A Heterogeneous CPU Architecture for a Secure RISC-V Execution Environment


Summary "To ensure secure and trustworthy execution of applications, vendors frequently embed trusted execution environments into their systems. Here, applications are protected from adversaries, including a malicious operating system. TEEs are usually built by integrating protection mechanisms directly into the processor or by using dedicated external secure elements. However, both of these... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Nov. 23


Graphene energy Researchers from the University of Arkansas, University of Pennsylvania, and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid built a circuit capable of capturing graphene's thermal motion and converting it into an electrical current. "An energy-harvesting circuit based on graphene could be incorporated into a chip to provide clean, limitless, low-voltage power for small devices or sensors,... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: May 21


More speculative vulnerabilities Security researchers at the Graz University of Technology, KU Leuven, Cyberus Technology, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute point to two new speculative execution vulnerabilities related to Meltdown and Spectre. The first, which they dubbed ZombieLoad, uses a similar approach to Meltdown. After preparing tasks in parallel, the processor needs to discard th... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


Security Security researchers identified a major exploit of the "speculative execution" technique used to optimize performance in modern processors. The flaws allow an attacker to read sensitive information in the system's memory such as passwords, encryption keys, or sensitive information open in applications, according to Google's Jann Horn. Multiple researchers discovered the issues indepen... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Oct. 18


Speeding up memory with T-rays Scientists at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), the University of Regensburg in Germany, Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and Moscow Technological University proposed a way to improve the performance of memory through using T-waves, or terahertz radiation, as a means of resetting memory cells. This process is several thousand... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 9


Faster FEBIDs Focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID) is generating steam in the industry. Still in the R&D stage, FEBID makes use of an electron beam from a scanning electron microscope. Basically, it decomposes gaseous molecules, which, in turn, deposit materials and structures on a surface at the nanoscale. One of the big applications is a futuristic manufacturing technology... » read more

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