Complexity’s Impact On Security

By Ed Sperling - 01 May, 2019 - Comments: 0

Ben Levine, senior director of product management for Rambus’ Security Division, explains why security now depends on the growing number of components and the impact of interactions between those components. This is particularly problematic with AI chips, both on the training and inferencing side, where security problems on the training side can alter models for AI inferencing. » read more

New Approaches To Security

By Ed Sperling - 09 Apr, 2019 - Comments: 0

Different approaches are emerging to identify suspicious behavior and shut down potential breaches before they have a chance to do serious damage. This is becoming particularly important in markets where safety is an issue, and in AI and edge devices where the rapid movement of data is essential. These methods are a significant departure from the traditional way of securing devices through l... » read more

Don’t Have A Meltdown Over A Spectre In Your SoC

By Anders Nordstrom - 07 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

You may be concerned about last year’s widely published Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities affecting most processors. Are your phone and computer OK? Or more importantly, if you are designing or verifying a System on Chip (SoC), do you have a specter in your design? Let’s first look at what these two vulnerabilities are and how they may be affecting your system. Both vulnerabilitie... » read more

Meltdown And Spectre, One Year Later

By Paul Kocher - 11 Feb, 2019 - Comments: 0

About this time last year, reports surfaced about security attacks on today’s most popular microprocessors (μPs). Researchers called them Meltdown, Spectre gaining widespread attention. Today, however, the industry and especially μP vendors have made some progress toward stemming these vulnerabilities. Here is my analysis as we enter into 2019. When it comes to these vulnerabilities, we ... » read more

Open-Source RISC-V Hardware And Security

By Ed Sperling - 12 Dec, 2018 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Helena Handschuh, a Rambus fellow; Richard Newell, senior principal product architect at Microsemi, a Microchip Company; and Joseph Kiniry, principal scientist at Galois. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. (L-R) Joseph Kiniry, Helena Handschuh and Richard Newell. SE: Is open-source hardware more secure, or does it just open up vulnera... » read more

Are Devices Getting More Secure?

By Ed Sperling and Kevin Fogarty - 07 Nov, 2018 - Comments: 2

Adding security into chip design is becoming more prevalent as more devices are connected to the Internet, but it's not clear whether that is enough to offset an explosion in connected "things." Security concerns have been growing for the past half-decade, starting with a rash of high-profile attacks on retail establishments, hotel membership clubs, and Equifax, one of the three top credit-c... » read more

Finding Security Holes In Hardware

By Ed Sperling - 06 Sep, 2018 - Comments: 0

At least three major security holes in processors were identified by Google's Project Zero over the past year, with more expected to roll out in coming months. Now the question is what to do about them. Since the beginning of the PC era, two requirements for hardware were backward compatibility and improvements in performance with each new version of processors. No one wants to replace their... » read more

Hardware Security Threat Rising

By Ed Sperling - 02 Aug, 2018 - Comments: 0

Martin Scott, senior vice president and CTO of Rambus, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about an increasing problem with security, what's driving it, and why hardware is now part of the growing attack surface. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: With Meltdown and Spectre, the stakes have changed because the focus is not on using hardware to get to software. It'... » read more

Security Holes In Machine Learning And AI

By Ed Sperling - 09 Jul, 2018 - Comments: 0

Machine learning and AI developers are starting to examine the integrity of training data, which in some cases will be used to train millions or even billions of devices. But this is the beginning of what will become a mammoth effort, because today no one is quite sure how that training data can be corrupted, or what to do about it if it is corrupted. Machine learning, deep learning and arti... » read more

CEO Outlook On Chip Industry (Part 3)

By Ed Sperling - 18 Jun, 2018 - Comments: 2

Semiconductor Engineering sat down with Wally Rhines, president and CEO of Mentor, a Siemens Business; Simon Segars, CEO of Arm; Grant Pierce, CEO of Sonics; and Dean Drako, CEO of IC Manage. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. To view part one, click here. Part two is here. L-R: Dean Drako, Grant Pierce, Wally Rhines, Simon Segars. Photo: Paul Cohen/ESD Alliance SE: Securit... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
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