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Intel driven MacBook Pros have secondary ARM processor for Touch ID and security

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Re: Intel driven MacBook Pros have secondary ARM processor for Touch ID and security

#41

Post by aexaey »

dom0 wrote: post #29
ginko wrote: post #4

Not really that surprising. Your average laptop nowadays probably has more ARM cores than x86 cores. They're in all kinds of peripherials like wifi controllers, power supplies, harddisk controllers, GPU job control, heck even AMD's recent APUs come with an integrated Cortex-A5.[1] ARM cores are everywhere, people just don't know about it. [1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/6007/amd-2013-apus-to-include-...

Intel platforms also had an ARC processor (they approximately cater the same markets as ARM minus mobile) for years in the ME. AMD does the same thing with an ARM core. Practically all peripherals contain at least one programmable processor. Remote management / IPMI also usually works with an entirely separate ARM computer that's integrated with the main computers graphics unit -- basically a shared framebuffer, just…

> Intel platforms also had an ARC processor

That is true for older designs. But didn't Intel switch from ARC to SPARC for their ME core not that long ago? Discussed here a while back:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8813029

Re: Intel driven MacBook Pros have secondary ARM processor for Touch ID and security

#42

Post by agumonkey »

ginko wrote: post #4

Not really that surprising. Your average laptop nowadays probably has more ARM cores than x86 cores. They're in all kinds of peripherials like wifi controllers, power supplies, harddisk controllers, GPU job control, heck even AMD's recent APUs come with an integrated Cortex-A5.[1] ARM cores are everywhere, people just don't know about it. [1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/6007/amd-2013-apus-to-include-...

Whenever this topic occurs, I send this in http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack&page=1

Ubiquitous com...fusion.

Re: Intel driven MacBook Pros have secondary ARM processor for Touch ID and security

#43

Post by msbarnett »

aexaey wrote: post #41
dom0 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel platforms also had an ARC processor (they approximately cater the same markets as ARM minus mobile) for years in the ME. AMD does the same thing with an ARM core. Practically all peripherals contain at least one programmable processor. Remote management / IPMI also usually works with an entirely separate ARM computer that's integrated with the main computers graphics unit -- basically a shared framebuffer, just…

> Intel platforms also had an ARC processor That is true for older designs. But didn't Intel switch from ARC to SPARC for their ME core not that long ago? Discussed here a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8813029

They're ARC cores, not SPARC. That thread is full of misunderstandings of a PDF version of a presentation that incorrectly concluded it was looking at a SPARC core when it was looking at a newer model ARCcompact

SPARC would be a terrible mismatch for what Intel wants out of its ME

Re: Intel driven MacBook Pros have secondary ARM processor for Touch ID and security

#44

Post by pg_is_a_butt »

agumonkey wrote: post #42
ginko wrote: post #4

Not really that surprising. Your average laptop nowadays probably has more ARM cores than x86 cores. They're in all kinds of peripherials like wifi controllers, power supplies, harddisk controllers, GPU job control, heck even AMD's recent APUs come with an integrated Cortex-A5.[1] ARM cores are everywhere, people just don't know about it. [1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/6007/amd-2013-apus-to-include-...

Whenever this topic occurs, I send this in http://spritesmods.com/?art=hddhack&page=1 Ubiquitous com...fusion.

how about your fix all the broken image links in that article instead of repeatedly spamming a broken article.

you're all idiots.

Re: Intel driven MacBook Pros have secondary ARM processor for Touch ID and security

#46

Post by deafcalculus »

oDot wrote: post #45

Quick question -- what's so good about ARM specifically? Aren't there other minimal architectures, maybe even one with lower/no licensing costs?

developer tools, operating system and software ecosystem, probably other IPs (like GPUs) integrate well with ARM but that might not be the case for a brand new processor, and a history of success (selling processor IP is enterprise sales).

Re: Intel driven MacBook Pros have secondary ARM processor for Touch ID and security

#47

Post by phamilton »

ginko wrote: post #4

Not really that surprising. Your average laptop nowadays probably has more ARM cores than x86 cores. They're in all kinds of peripherials like wifi controllers, power supplies, harddisk controllers, GPU job control, heck even AMD's recent APUs come with an integrated Cortex-A5.[1] ARM cores are everywhere, people just don't know about it. [1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/6007/amd-2013-apus-to-include-...

Don't forget that many (if not most) SSDs are dual core ARM chips.

Re: Intel driven MacBook Pros have secondary ARM processor for Touch ID and security

#48

Post by [deleted] »

ginko wrote: post #4

Not really that surprising. Your average laptop nowadays probably has more ARM cores than x86 cores. They're in all kinds of peripherials like wifi controllers, power supplies, harddisk controllers, GPU job control, heck even AMD's recent APUs come with an integrated Cortex-A5.[1] ARM cores are everywhere, people just don't know about it. [1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/6007/amd-2013-apus-to-include-...

[deleted]

Re: Intel driven MacBook Pros have secondary ARM processor for Touch ID and security

#49

Post by wepple »

krastanov wrote: post #9

Any idea whether this secure enclave will work if you are running Linux? (I like the hardware, but I am more used to the Linux/GNU/gnome software)

Based on a talk at the recent blackhat 2016 conference, bootstrapping and communicating with a secure-enclave processor can be a huge task. If it is ever possible, it will require some fairly large engineering (and reverse engineering) efforts.

Re: Intel driven MacBook Pros have secondary ARM processor for Touch ID and security

#50

Post by wlesieutre »

ludwigschubert wrote: post #22
shawkinaw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the headphone jack that is still there?

...and on the wrong side. ;-)

As a lefty, I'm looking forward to not having the headphone cable dangling across my papers area. Suck it, righties! It's your turn to be slightly inconvenienced!
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