The specifics of AMD's organizational structure is such that one division is responsible for the release of "custom" solutions for game consoles and server processors, and from the outside it may seem that such a neighborhood is accidental. Meanwhile, the revelations of Forrest Norrod, head of this AMD business line, in an interview with the resource allow you to understand how game consoles at some point helped make EPYC processors more secure from hacker attacks.
When developing "custom" processors for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 game consoles, Microsoft and Sony, according to Norrod, insisted on implementing hardware protection features against the use of illegal copies of games. These processors introduced support for 16-key hardware encryption, which, when game consoles hit the market in 2013, put an end to the massive “piracy” that flourished during the life cycle of previous generation game consoles.
Forrest Norrod himself went to work at AMD already in 2014, but the development of the first generation EPYC server processors was already in full swing at that time, and it was decided to use the mechanisms for protecting the software environment using encryption keys, tested on game consoles, it was decided to use in the server segment. As a result, the first generation EPYC processors acquired support for 15 encryption keys, and in the case of the 7nm Rome generation processors, their number increased to 509 pieces. With these keys, generated by an ARM-compatible coprocessor, you can protect a proportionate number of virtual machines from intrusion. As the server ecosystem actively moves towards cloud-based capacity, support for reliable isolation of virtual machines will be in great demand by customers, says Norrod. In four years, according to him, no one will agree to work differently.
Source: 3dnews.ru