Processor enhances security for embedded applications

Intel says its Trusted Execution Technology brings hardware data security to the embedded market, making its new E8400 dual-core processor ideal for military and government, mid-range network security appliances, and retail applications.

By Control Engineering Staff May 28, 2008

San Jose, CA — At the Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley, Intel Corp. announced its 45-nm Core2 duo processor E8400 with 7-year lifecycle support for embedded applications. To enhance security in embedded solutions, the processor also supports the company’s Trusted Execution Technology.
A hardware extension to the previous generation processor, the company says its Trusted Execution Technology brings hardware data security to the embedded market, making the dual-core processor ideal for military and government, mid-range network security appliances, and retail applications. This security technology is designed to guard data within tamper-resistant virtualized computing environments and to protect against software attacks, viruses, and other threats.
The company says that, based on its high-k metal gate transistor formula and manufactured on its 45 nm process, the processor offers increased performance by doubling transistor density and increasing cache size up to 6 MB, which, it says, is a three-fold enhancement over the previous-generation version The processor is available to customers today and costs $183 in quantities of 1,000.
The 45 nm processor includes a Super Shuffle Engine that enhances the company’s Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) algorithms, which are said to be optimized for graphics and multimedia processing. SSE, according to the company, reduces latency and improves the speed of existing SSE instructions while enabling significant gains on the latest Intel Streaming SIMD Extensions 4 (SSE4) instruction set. Developers can benefit from the SSE4 media instruction sets for the enhancement of video editing and encoding that is inherent in many embedded applications, such as interactive clients and digital signage.
— Edited by C.G. Masi , senior editor
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