ABSTRACT
Data security is a major concern in personal computing (PC) systems due to the ubiquitous connectivity of PCs to the Internet and the many well-publicized cases of viruses, data theft, and so forth. The increasing use of wireless connectivity further increases security risks. As designers (Centaur Technology Inc.) of the VIA Technologies Inc. (VIA) family of Intel-compatible (x86) processors, we decided in 2001 to integrate the fundamental building blocks of data security into all of our future x86 processors. By integrating these functions, we could exploit the inherently high performance of the processor, as well as ensure that add-on hardware adapters, additional chips, and the like were not needed to provide data security: fast data security features would always be available to software. Because no other x86 processor manufacturer (Intel and AMD®) provided these security functions in their processors, we felt that we should set the example by providing such functionality in all of our processors, for free. Our challenge was thus twofold: to design secure and high-performance security features, and to do it with little development effort or die-size impact. This chapter summarizes the security features we created, and how we did it.
