Misplaced Pages

#819180

110-597: The Intel Management Engine ( ME ), also known as the Intel Manageability Engine , is an autonomous subsystem that has been incorporated in virtually all of Intel 's processor chipsets since 2008. It is located in the Platform Controller Hub of modern Intel motherboards . The Intel Management Engine always runs as long as the motherboard is receiving power, even when the computer is turned off. This issue can be mitigated with

220-416: A "critical firmware update". Essentially, every Intel-based computer for the last several years, including most desktops and servers, were found to be vulnerable to having their security compromised, although all the potential routes of exploitation were not entirely known. It is not possible to patch the problems from the operating system, and a firmware (UEFI, BIOS) update to the motherboard is required, which

330-558: A bad pointer in a driver normally leads to a system crash. If a driver gets into an infinite loop , the scheduler will gradually lower its priority until it becomes idle. Eventually the reincarnation server will see that it is not responding to status requests, so it will kill and restart the looping driver. In a monolithic kernel, a looping driver could hang the system. Minix 3 uses fixed-length messages for internal communication, which eliminates certain buffer overflows and buffer management problems. Also, many exploits work by overrunning

440-434: A buffer to trick the program into returning from a function call using an overwritten stack return address pointing into attacker controlled memory, usually the overrun buffer. In Minix 3, this attack is mitigated because instruction and data space are split and only code in (read-only) instruction space can be executed, termed executable space protection . However, attacks which rely on running legitimately executable memory in

550-529: A compromised system from running undetected, yet allows the owner to fix the issue by flashing a valid version of the ME firmware during the grace period. As the project found out, by making unauthorized changes to the ME firmware, it was possible to force it into an abnormal error state that prevented triggering the shutdown even if large parts of the firmware had been overwritten and thus made inoperable. In August 2017, Positive Technologies ( Dmitry Sklyarov ) published

660-598: A driver fails to respond to pings from this server, it is shut down and replaced by a fresh copy of the driver. In a monolithic system, a bug in a driver can easily crash the whole kernel. This is far less likely to occur in Minix 3. Minix 3 was publicly announced on 24 October 2005 by Andrew Tanenbaum during his keynote speech on top of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Symposium Operating Systems Principles conference. Although it still serves as an example for

770-582: A fresh copy. In this way the system is automatically made self-healing without interfering with running programs. Currently the reincarnation server, the process server, and the microkernel are part of the trusted computing base . If any of them fail, the system crashes. Nevertheless, reducing the trusted computing base from 3-5 million lines of code, as in Linux and Windows systems, to about 20,000 lines greatly enhances system reliability. Minix 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 were developed as tools to help people learn about

880-437: A limited group of private investors (equivalent to $ 21 million in 2022), convertible at $ 5 per share. Just 2 years later, Intel became a public company via an initial public offering (IPO), raising $ 6.8 million ($ 23.50 per share). Intel was one of the very first companies to be listed on the then-newly established National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations ( NASDAQ ) stock exchange. Intel's third employee

990-572: A major retrenchment for most of the major semiconductor manufacturers, except for Qualcomm, which continued to see healthy purchases from its largest customer, Apple. As of July 2013, five companies were using Intel's fabs via the Intel Custom Foundry division: Achronix , Tabula , Netronome , Microsemi , and Panasonic  – most are field-programmable gate array (FPGA) makers, but Netronome designs network processors. Only Achronix began shipping chips made by Intel using

1100-430: A malicious way ( return-to-libc , return-oriented programming ) are not prevented by this mitigation. Device drivers obtain kernel services (such as copying data to users' address spaces) by making kernel calls. The Minix 3 kernel has a bit map for each driver specifying which calls it is authorized to make. In monolithic kernels, every driver can call every kernel function, authorized or not. The kernel also maintains

1210-509: A method to disable the ME via an undocumented built-in mode . As Intel has confirmed the ME contains a switch to enable government authorities such as the NSA to make the ME go into High-Assurance Platform (HAP) mode after boot. This mode disables most of ME's functions, and was intended to be available only in machines produced for specific purchasers like the US government; however, most machines sold on

SECTION 10

#1732787432820

1320-632: A new microprocessor manufacturing facility in Chandler, Arizona , completed in 2013 at a cost of $ 5 billion. The building is now the 10 nm-certified Fab 42 and is connected to the other Fabs (12, 22, 32) on Ocotillo Campus via an enclosed bridge known as the Link. The company produces three-quarters of its products in the United States, although three-quarters of its revenue come from overseas. The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI)

1430-696: A processor for tablets and smartphones – to the market in 2012, as an effort to compete with Arm. As a 32-nanometer processor, Medfield is designed to be energy-efficient, which is one of the core features in Arm's chips. At the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) 2011 in San Francisco, Intel's partnership with Google was announced. In January 2012, Google announced Android 2.3, supporting Intel's Atom microprocessor. In 2013, Intel's Kirk Skaugen said that Intel's exclusive focus on Microsoft platforms

1540-477: A remotely exploitable security hole in the ME. Several ways to disable the ME without authorization that could allow ME's functions to be sabotaged have been found. Additional major security flaws in the ME affecting a very large number of computers incorporating ME, Trusted Execution Engine (TXE), and Server Platform Services (SPS) firmware, from Skylake in 2015 to Coffee Lake in 2017, were confirmed by Intel on 20 November 2017 (SA-00086). Unlike SA-00075, this bug

1650-462: A small amount of assembly language ). It handles interrupts , scheduling , and message passing. It also supports an application programming interface (API) of about 30 kernel calls that authorized servers and drivers can make. User programs cannot make these calls. Instead, they can issue POSIX system calls which send messages to the servers. The kernel calls perform functions such as setting interrupts and copying data between address spaces. At

1760-579: A standalone business unit. Unlike Intel Custom Foundry, IFS will offer a combination of packaging and process technology, and Intel's IP portfolio including x86 cores. Other plans for the company include a partnership with IBM and a new event for developers and engineers, called "Intel ON". Gelsinger also confirmed that Intel's 7 nm process is on track, and that the first products using their 7 nm process (also known as Intel 4) are Ponte Vecchio and Meteor Lake . In January 2022, Intel reportedly selected New Albany, Ohio , near Columbus, Ohio , as

1870-636: A stroke regained much of its leadership of the field. In 2008, Intel had another "tick" when it introduced the Penryn microarchitecture, fabricated using the 45 nm process node. Later that year, Intel released a processor with the Nehalem architecture to positive reception. On June 27, 2006, the sale of Intel's XScale assets was announced. Intel agreed to sell the XScale processor business to Marvell Technology Group for an estimated $ 600 million and

1980-418: A strong presence in the high-performance general-purpose and gaming PC market with its Intel Core line of CPUs, whose high-end models are among the fastest consumer CPUs, as well as its Intel Arc series of GPUs. The Open Source Technology Center at Intel hosts PowerTOP and LatencyTOP , and supports other open source projects such as Wayland , Mesa , Threading Building Blocks (TBB), and Xen . Intel

2090-538: A struggle with Microsoft for control over the direction of the PC industry. Since the 2000s and especially since the late 2010s, Intel has faced increasing competition, which has led to a reduction in Intel's dominance and market share in the PC market. Nevertheless, with a 68.4% market share as of 2023, Intel still leads the x86 market by a wide margin. In addition, Intel's ability to design and manufacture its own chips

2200-566: A subsystem with a similar function as the ME. Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California , and incorporated in Delaware . Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer components and related products for business and consumer markets. It is considered one of the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturers by revenue and ranked in

2310-400: A table telling which I/O ports each driver may access. Thus, a driver can only touch its own I/O ports. In monolithic kernels, a buggy driver can access I/O ports belonging to another device. Not every driver and server needs to communicate with every other driver and server. Accordingly, a per-process bit map determines which destinations each process may send to. A special process, called

SECTION 20

#1732787432820

2420-416: A usual program) can bring down the whole system, Minix 3 aims to create an operating system that is a "reliable, self-healing, multiserver Unix clone". To achieve that, the code running in kernel must be minimal, with the file server, process server, and each device driver running as separate user-mode processes. Each driver is carefully monitored by a part of the system named the reincarnation server . If

2530-456: Is RISC-V , which is an open source CPU instruction set. The major Chinese phone and telecommunications manufacturer Huawei has released chips based on the RISC-V instruction set due to US sanctions against China . Intel has been involved in several disputes regarding the violation of antitrust laws , which are noted below. Intel reported total CO 2 e emissions (direct + indirect) for

2640-506: Is another large customer for Intel. In September 2024, Intel reportedly qualified for as much as $ 3.5 billion in federal grants to make semiconductors for the Defense Department. According to IDC , while Intel enjoyed the biggest market share in both the overall worldwide PC microprocessor market (73.3%) and the mobile PC microprocessor (80.4%) in the second quarter of 2011, the numbers decreased by 1.5% and 1.9% compared to

2750-411: Is considered a rarity in the semiconductor industry , as most chip designers do not have their own production facilities and instead rely on contract manufacturers (e.g. AMD and Nvidia ). In 2023, Dell accounted for about 19% of Intel's total revenues, Lenovo accounted for 11% of total revenues, and HP Inc. accounted for 10% of total revenues. As of May 2024, the U.S. Department of Defense

2860-435: Is converted at a low level to a notification sent to the appropriate driver. If the driver is waiting for a message, it gets the interrupt immediately; otherwise it gets the notification the next time it does a RECEIVE to get a message. This scheme eliminates nested interrupts and makes driver programming easier. As can be seen, at the bottom level is the microkernel , which is about 4,000 lines of code (mostly in C , plus

2970-584: Is disabled by default and must be enabled to exploit this vulnerability. Some months after the previous bugs, and subsequent warnings from the EFF, security firm Positive Technologies claimed to have developed a working exploit . On 20 November 2017, Intel confirmed that a number of serious flaws had been found in the Management Engine (mainstream), Trusted Execution Engine (tablet/mobile), and Server Platform Services (high end server) firmware, and released

3080-517: Is even present if AMT is absent, not provisioned or if the ME was "disabled" by any of the known unofficial methods. In July 2018, another set of vulnerabilities was disclosed (SA-00112). In September 2018, yet another vulnerability was published (SA-00125). A ring  −3 rootkit was demonstrated by Invisible Things Lab for the Q35 chipset; it does not work for the later Q45 chipset as Intel implemented additional protections. The exploit worked by remapping

3190-438: Is expected to affect Intel minimally; however, it might prompt other PC manufacturers to reevaluate their reliance on Intel and the x86 architecture. On March 23, 2021, CEO Pat Gelsinger laid out new plans for the company. These include a new strategy, called IDM 2.0, that includes investments in manufacturing facilities, use of both internal and external foundries, and a new foundry business called Intel Foundry Services (IFS),

3300-464: Is for the system to be fault-tolerant by detecting and repairing its faults on the fly, with no user intervention. The main uses of the system are envisaged to be embedded systems and education. As of 2017 , Minix 3 supports IA-32 and ARM architecture processors. It can also run on emulators or virtual machines , such as Bochs , VMware Workstation , Microsoft Virtual PC , Oracle VirtualBox , and QEMU . A port to PowerPC architecture

3410-493: Is in development. The distribution comes on a live CD and does not support live USB installation. The project has been dormant since 2018, and the latest release is 3.4.0 rc6 from 2017, although the Minix 3 discussion group is still active. Minix 3 is believed to have inspired the Intel Management Engine (ME) OS found in Intel's Platform Controller Hub , starting with the introduction of ME 11, which

Intel Management Engine - Misplaced Pages Continue

3520-424: Is normally not possible for the end-user to disable the ME and there is no officially supported method to disable it, but some undocumented methods to do so were discovered. The ME's security architecture is designed to prevent disabling. Intel considers disabling the ME to be a security vulnerability, as a malware could abuse it to make the computer lose some of the functionality that the typical user expects, such as

3630-411: Is often confused with Intel AMT (Intel Active Management Technology). AMT runs on the ME, but is only available on processors with vPro . AMT gives device owners remote administration of their computer, such as powering it on or off, and reinstalling the operating system. However, the ME itself has been built into all Intel chipsets since 2008, not only those with AMT. While AMT can be unprovisioned by

3740-657: Is one of several firmware sets for the Converged Security and Manageability Engine (CSME). Prior to AMT version 11, CSME was called Intel Management Engine BIOS Extension (Intel MEBx). It was also found that the ME firmware version 11 runs MINIX 3 . Several weaknesses have been found in the ME. On May 1, 2017, Intel confirmed a Remote Elevation of Privilege bug (SA-00075) in its Management Technology. Every Intel platform with provisioned Intel Standard Manageability, Active Management Technology, or Small Business Technology, from Nehalem in 2008 to Kaby Lake in 2017 has

3850-471: Is planned for 2027. Including subcontractors, this would create 10,000 new jobs. In August 2022, Intel signed a $ 30   billion partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to fund its recent factory expansions. As part of the deal, Intel would have a controlling stake by funding 51% of the cost of building new chip-making facilities in Chandler, with Brookfield owning the remaining 49% stake, allowing

3960-503: Is still physically connected to the system and its microprocessor continues to execute code. Some manufacturers like Purism and System76 disable the Intel Management Engine. In 2016, the me_cleaner project found that the ME's integrity verification is broken. The ME is supposed to detect that it has been tampered with and, if this is the case, shut down the PC forcibly 30 minutes after system start. This prevents

4070-677: Is stored in a partition of the SPI BIOS Flash, using the Embedded Flash File System (EFFS). Previous versions were based on an ARC core , with the Management Engine running the ThreadX RTOS . Versions 1.x to 5.x of the ME used the ARCTangent-A4 (32-bit only instructions) whereas versions 6.x to 8.x used the newer ARCompact (mixed 32- and 16-bit instruction set architecture ). Starting with ME 7.1,

4180-479: Is used with Skylake and Kaby Lake processors. It was debated that Minix could have been the most widely used OS on x86 / AMD64 processors, with more installations than Microsoft Windows, Linux, or macOS , because of its use in the Intel ME. Reflecting on the nature of monolithic kernel based systems, where a driver (which has, according to Minix creator Tanenbaum , approximately 3–7 times as many bugs as

4290-755: The Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue for nearly a decade, from 2007 to 2016 fiscal years, until it was removed from the ranking in 2018. In 2020, it was reinstated and ranked 45th, being the 7th-largest technology company in the ranking . Intel supplies microprocessors for most manufacturers of computer systems, and is one of the developers of the x86 series of instruction sets found in most personal computers (PCs). It also manufactures chipsets , network interface controllers , flash memory , graphics processing units (GPUs), field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and other devices related to communications and computing. Intel has

4400-515: The PowerPC architecture developed by the AIM alliance . This was seen as a win for Intel; an analyst called the move "risky" and "foolish", as Intel's current offerings at the time were considered to be behind those of AMD and IBM. In 2006, Intel unveiled its Core microarchitecture to widespread critical acclaim; the product range was perceived as an exceptional leap in processor performance that at

4510-614: The Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984 , a law sought by Intel and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). During the late 1980s and 1990s (after this law was passed), Intel also sued companies that tried to develop competitor chips to the 80386 CPU . The lawsuits were noted to significantly burden the competition with legal bills, even if Intel lost the suits. Antitrust allegations had been simmering since

Intel Management Engine - Misplaced Pages Continue

4620-421: The X Window System . Minix 3 does the same, and provides a modern operating system with many newer tools and many Unix applications. Prof. Tanenbaum once said: Please be aware that MINIX 3 is not your grandfather's MINIX ... MINIX 1 was written as an educational tool ... MINIX 3 is that plus a start at building a highly reliable, self-healing, bloat-free operating system ... MINIX 1 and MINIX 3 are related in

4730-492: The Zen microarchitecture and a new chiplet -based design to critical acclaim. Since its introduction, AMD, once unable to compete with Intel in the high-end CPU market, has undergone a resurgence, and Intel's dominance and market share have considerably decreased. In addition, Apple began to transition away from the x86 architecture and Intel processors to their own Apple silicon for their Macintosh computers in 2020. The transition

4840-535: The semiconductor memory market, widely predicted to replace magnetic-core memory . Its first product, a quick entry into the small, high-speed memory market in 1969, was the 3101 Schottky TTL bipolar 64-bit static random-access memory (SRAM), which was nearly twice as fast as earlier Schottky diode implementations by Fairchild and the Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan . In

4950-457: The x86 processor market is AMD, with which Intel has had full cross-licensing agreements since 1976: each partner can use the other's patented technological innovations without charge after a certain time. However, the cross-licensing agreement is canceled in the event of an AMD bankruptcy or takeover. Some smaller competitors, such as VIA Technologies, produce low-power x86 processors for small factor computers and portable equipment. However,

5060-628: The "zero touch" provisioning mode (ZTC) is still enabled even when the AMT appears to be disabled in BIOS. For about 60 euros, Ververis purchased from GoDaddy a certificate that is accepted by the ME firmware and allows remote "zero touch" provisioning of (possibly unsuspecting) machines, which broadcast their HELLO packets to would-be configuration servers. In May 2017, Intel confirmed that many computers with AMT have had an unpatched critical privilege escalation vulnerability ( CVE-2017-5689 ). The vulnerability

5170-464: The 22 nm Tri-Gate process. Several other customers also exist but were not announced at the time. The foundry business was closed in 2018 due to Intel's issues with its manufacturing. Intel continued its tick-tock model of a microarchitecture change followed by a die shrink until the 6th-generation Core family based on the Skylake microarchitecture. This model was deprecated in 2016, with

5280-575: The ARC processor could also execute signed Java applets . The ME has its own MAC and IP address for the out-of-band management interface, with direct access to the Ethernet controller; one portion of the Ethernet traffic is diverted to the ME even before reaching the host's operating system, for what support exists in various Ethernet controllers, exported and made configurable via Management Component Transport Protocol (MCTP). The ME also communicates with

5390-595: The ME firmware region can simply flash an old, vulnerable version and then exploit the bug. In July 2018, Intel announced that three vulnerabilities ( CVE - 2018-3628 , CVE- 2018-3629 , CVE- 2018-3632 ) had been discovered and that a patch for the CSME firmware would be required. Intel indicated there would be no patch for 3rd generation Core processors or earlier despite chips or their chipsets as far back as Intel Core 2 Duo vPro and Intel Centrino 2 vPro being affected. However, Intel AMT must be enabled and provisioned for

5500-610: The ME is required to provide full performance. Its exact workings are largely undocumented and its code is obfuscated using confidential Huffman tables stored directly in hardware, so the firmware does not contain the information necessary to decode its contents. Starting with ME 11 (introduced in Skylake CPUs), it is based on the Intel Quark x86-based 32-bit CPU and runs the MINIX 3 operating system. The ME firmware

5610-622: The SA-00086 vulnerability. This is because the vulnerability is in an early-loaded ME module that is essential to boot the main CPU. As of 2017, Google was attempting to eliminate proprietary firmware from its servers and found that the ME was a hurdle to that. Shortly after SA-00086 was patched, vendors for AMD processor mainboards started shipping BIOS updates that allow disabling the AMD Platform Security Processor ,

SECTION 50

#1732787432820

5720-611: The UN Broadband Commission's worldwide target of 5% of monthly income. In April 2011, Intel began a pilot project with ZTE Corporation to produce smartphones using the Intel Atom processor for China's domestic market. In December 2011, Intel announced that it reorganized several of its business units into a new mobile and communications group that would be responsible for the company's smartphone, tablet, and wireless efforts. Intel planned to introduce Medfield –

5830-689: The United States. Intel was incorporated in Mountain View, California , on July 18, 1968, by Gordon E. Moore (known for " Moore's law "), a chemist ; Robert Noyce , a physicist and co-inventor of the integrated circuit ; and Arthur Rock , an investor and venture capitalist . Moore and Noyce had left Fairchild Semiconductor , where they were part of the " traitorous eight " who founded it. There were originally 500,000 shares outstanding of which Dr. Noyce bought 245,000 shares, Dr. Moore 245,000 shares, and Mr. Rock 10,000 shares; all at $ 1 per share. Rock offered $ 2,500,000 of convertible debentures to

5940-450: The Xeon 6 processor, aiming for better performance and power efficiency compared to its predecessor. Intel's Gaudi 2 and Gaudi 3 AI accelerators were revealed to be more cost-effective than competitors' offerings. Additionally, Intel disclosed architecture details for its Lunar Lake processors for AI PCs, which were released on September 24, 2024. MINIX 3 The project's main goal

6050-467: The ability to play media with DRM , specifically DRM media that are using HDCP . On the other hand, it is also possible for malicious actors to use the ME to remotely compromise a system. Strictly speaking, none of the known methods can disable the ME completely, since it is required for booting the main CPU. The currently known methods merely make the ME go into abnormal states soon after boot, in which it seems not to have any working functionality. The ME

6160-421: The addition of X11, this version marks the transition away from a text-only system. Another feature of this version, which will be improved in future ones, is the ability of the system to withstand device driver crashes, and in many cases having them automatically replaced without affecting running processes. In this way, Minix is self-healing and can be used in applications demanding high reliability. Minix 3.2.0

6270-587: The advent of such mobile computing devices, in particular, smartphones , has led to a decline in PC sales . Since over 95% of the world's smartphones currently use processors cores designed by Arm , using the Arm instruction set , Arm has become a major competitor for Intel's processor market. Arm is also planning to make attempts at setting foot into the PC and server market, with Ampere and IBM each individually designing CPUs for servers and supercomputers . The only other major competitor in processor instruction sets

6380-402: The assumption of unspecified liabilities. The move was intended to permit Intel to focus its resources on its core x86 and server businesses, and the acquisition completed on November 9, 2006. In 2008, Intel spun off key assets of a solar startup business effort to form an independent company, SpectraWatt Inc. In 2011, SpectraWatt filed for bankruptcy. In February 2011, Intel began to build

6490-420: The companies to split the revenue from those facilities. On January 31, 2023, as part of $ 3 billion in cost reductions, Intel announced pay cuts affecting employees above midlevel, ranging from 5% upwards. It also suspended bonuses and merit pay increases, while reducing retirement plan matching. These cost reductions followed layoffs announced in the fall of 2022. In October 2023, Intel confirmed it would be

6600-456: The company as NM Electronics on July 18, 1968, but by the end of the month had changed the name to Intel , which stood for Int egrated El ectronics. Since "Intel" was already trademarked by the hotel chain Intelco, they had to buy the rights for the name. At its founding, Intel was distinguished by its ability to make logic circuits using semiconductor devices . The founders' goal was

6710-425: The company's focus to microprocessors and to change fundamental aspects of that business model. Moore's decision to sole-source Intel's 386 chip played into the company's continuing success. By the end of the 1980s, buoyed by its fortuitous position as microprocessor supplier to IBM and IBM's competitors within the rapidly growing personal computer market , Intel embarked on a 10-year period of unprecedented growth as

SECTION 60

#1732787432820

6820-476: The deployment of a hardware device which is able to disconnect all connections to mains power as well as all internal forms of energy storage. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and some security researchers have voiced concern that the Management Engine is a backdoor . Intel's main competitor, AMD , has incorporated the equivalent AMD Secure Technology (formally called Platform Security Processor) in virtually all of its post-2013 CPUs. The Management Engine

6930-493: The design of operating systems. Minix 1.0, released in 1987, was 12,000 lines of C and some x86 assembly language . Source code of the kernel, memory manager , and file system of Minix 1.0 are printed in the book. Tanenbaum originally developed Minix for compatibility with the IBM PC and IBM PC/AT microcomputers available at the time. Minix 1.5, released in 1991, included support for MicroChannel IBM PS/2 systems and

7040-403: The disk driver, which controls the disk. One of the key servers is the reincarnation server. Its job is to poll all the other servers and drivers to check on their health periodically. If a component fails to respond correctly, or exits, or gets into an infinite loop , the reincarnation server (which is the parent process of the drivers and servers) kills the faulty component and replaces it with

7150-567: The early 1980s, and manufacturing and development centers in China, India, and Costa Rica in the 1990s. By the early 1980s, its business was dominated by DRAM chips. However, increased competition from Japanese semiconductor manufacturers had, by 1983, dramatically reduced the profitability of this market. The growing success of the IBM personal computer, based on an Intel microprocessor, was among factors that convinced Gordon Moore (CEO since 1975) to shift

7260-506: The early 1990s and had been the cause of one lawsuit against Intel in 1991. In 2004 and 2005, AMD brought further claims against Intel related to unfair competition . In 2005, CEO Paul Otellini reorganized the company to refocus its core processor and chipset business on platforms (enterprise, digital home, digital health, and mobility). On June 6, 2005, Steve Jobs , then CEO of Apple , announced that Apple would be using Intel's x86 processors for its Macintosh computers, switching from

7370-653: The first commercial user of high-NA EUV lithography tool, as part of its plan to regain process leadership from TSMC . In August 2024, following a below-expectations Q2 earnings announcement, Intel announced "significant actions to reduce our costs. We plan to deliver $ 10 billion in cost savings in 2025, and this includes reducing our head count by roughly 15,000 roles, or 15% of our workforce." In December 2023, Intel unveiled Gaudi3, an artificial intelligence (AI) chip for generative AI software which will launch in 2024 and compete with rival chips from Nvidia and AMD. On 4 June 2024, Intel announced AI chips for data centers,

7480-445: The first commercially available dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), the 1103 released in 1970, solved these issues. The 1103 was the bestselling semiconductor memory chip in the world by 1972, as it replaced core memory in many applications. Intel's business grew during the 1970s as it expanded and improved its manufacturing processes and produced a wider range of products , still dominated by various memory devices. Intel created

7590-460: The first commercially available microprocessor, the Intel 4004 , in 1971. The microprocessor represented a notable advance in the technology of integrated circuitry, as it miniaturized the central processing unit of a computer, which then made it possible for small machines to perform calculations that in the past only very large machines could do. Considerable technological innovation was needed before

7700-440: The first quarter of 2011. Intel's market share decreased significantly in the enthusiast market as of 2019, and they have faced delays for their 10 nm products. According to former Intel CEO Bob Swan, the delay was caused by the company's overly aggressive strategy for moving to its next node. In the 1980s, Intel was among the world's top ten sellers of semiconductors (10th in 1987 ). Along with Microsoft Windows , it

7810-533: The host via PCI interface. Under Linux, communication between the host and the ME is done via /dev/mei or /dev/mei0 . Until the release of Nehalem processors, the ME was usually embedded into the motherboard's northbridge , following the Memory Controller Hub (MCH) layout. With the newer Intel architectures ( Intel 5 Series onwards), the ME is integrated into the Platform Controller Hub (PCH). By Intel's current terminology as of 2017, ME

7920-427: The kernel checks each call for authority. In monolithic kernels, a driver can write to any word of memory and thus accidentally corrupt user programs. In Minix 3, when a user expects data from, for example, the file system, it builds a descriptor telling who has access and at what addresses. It then passes an index to this descriptor to the file system, which may pass it to a driver. The file system or driver then asks

8030-415: The kernel to check authorization, so that, for example, the audio driver cannot write on the disk. At the next level there are the servers . This is where nearly all the operating system functionality is located. User processes obtain file service, for example, by sending messages to the file server to open, close, read, and write files. In turn, the file server gets disk I/O performed by sending messages to

8140-476: The kernel to write via the descriptor, making it impossible for them to write to addresses outside the buffer. Dereferencing a bad pointer within a driver will crash the driver process, but will have no effect on the system as a whole. The reincarnation server will restart the crashed driver automatically. Users will not notice recovery for some drivers (e.g., disk and network) but for others (e.g., audio and printer), they might. In monolithic kernels, dereferencing

8250-433: The kernel. Thus, when a new peripheral is installed, unknown, untrusted code is inserted in the kernel. One bad line of code in a driver can bring down the system. Instead, in Minix 3, each device driver is a separate user-mode process. Drivers cannot execute privileged instructions, change the page tables , perform arbitrary input/output (I/O), or write to absolute memory. They must make kernel calls for these services and

8360-434: The main goals of Minix 3 is reliability. Below, some of the more important principles that enhance its reliability are discussed. Monolithic operating systems such as Linux and FreeBSD and hybrids like Windows have millions of lines of kernel code. In contrast, Minix 3 has about 6,000 lines of executable kernel code, which can make problems easier to find in the code. In monolithic kernels, device drivers reside in

8470-416: The majority of its business until 1981. Although Intel created the world's first commercial microprocessor chip—the Intel 4004 —in 1971, it was not until the success of the PC in the early 1990s that this became its primary business. During the 1990s, the partnership between Microsoft Windows and Intel, known as " Wintel ", became instrumental in shaping the PC landscape and solidified Intel's position on

8580-400: The market. As a result, Intel invested heavily in new microprocessor designs in the mid to late 1990s, fostering the rapid growth of the computer industry . During this period, it became the dominant supplier of PC microprocessors, with a market share of 90%, and was known for aggressive and anti-competitive tactics in defense of its market position, particularly against AMD , as well as

8690-536: The microprocessor could actually become the basis of what was first known as a "mini computer" and then known as a "personal computer". Intel also created one of the first microcomputers in 1973. Intel opened its first international manufacturing facility in 1972, in Malaysia , which would host multiple Intel operations, before opening assembly facilities and semiconductor plants in Singapore and Jerusalem in

8800-405: The new edition of Tanenbaum and Woodhull's textbook, it is comprehensively redesigned to be "usable as a serious system on resource-limited and embedded computers and for applications requiring high reliability." Initially released under the same BSD-3-Clause license that Minix was licensed under since 2000. In late 2005, the copyright owner was changed and a fourth clause was added. One of

8910-530: The next level up, there are the device drivers , each one running as a separate userland process. Each one controls some I/O device, such as a disk or printer. The drivers do not have access to the I/O port space and cannot issue I/O instructions directly. Instead, they must make kernel calls giving a list of I/O ports to write to and the values to be written. While there is a small amount of overhead in doing this (typically 500 ns), this scheme makes it possible for

9020-610: The node. The first microprocessor under that node, Cannon Lake (marketed as 8th-generation Core), was released in small quantities in 2018. The company first delayed the mass production of their 10 nm products to 2017. They later delayed mass production to 2018, and then to 2019. Despite rumors of the process being cancelled, Intel finally introduced mass-produced 10 nm 10th-generation Intel Core mobile processors (codenamed " Ice Lake ") in September 2019. Intel later acknowledged that their strategy to shrink to 10 nm

9130-602: The normally protected memory region (top 16 MB of RAM) reserved for the ME. The ME rootkit could be installed regardless of whether the AMT is present or enabled on the system, as the chipset always contains the ARC ME coprocessor. (The "−3" designation was chosen because the ME coprocessor works even when the system is in the S3 state . Thus, it was considered a layer below the System Management Mode rootkits.) For

9240-451: The operating system, thus bypassing its firewall. Intel responded by saying, "Intel does not put backdoors in its products, nor do our products give Intel control or access to computing systems without the explicit permission of the end user." and "Intel does not and will not design backdoors for access into its products. Recent reports claiming otherwise are misinformed and blatantly false. Intel does not participate in any efforts to decrease

9350-408: The owner, there is no official, documented way to disable the ME. The subsystem primarily consists of proprietary firmware running on a separate microprocessor that performs tasks during boot-up, while the computer is running, and while it is asleep. As long as the chipset or SoC is supplied with power (via battery or power supply), it continues to run even when the system is turned off. Intel claims

9460-670: The primary and most profitable hardware supplier to the PC industry, part of the winning 'Wintel' combination. Moore handed over his position as CEO to Andy Grove in 1987. By launching its Intel Inside marketing campaign in 1991, Intel was able to associate brand loyalty with consumer selection, so that by the end of the 1990s, its line of Pentium processors had become a household name. After 2000, growth in demand for high-end microprocessors slowed. Competitors, most notably AMD (Intel's largest competitor in its primary x86 architecture market), garnered significant market share, initially in low-end and mid-range processors but ultimately across

9570-514: The product range, and Intel's dominant position in its core market was greatly reduced, mostly due to controversial NetBurst microarchitecture. In the early 2000s then-CEO, Craig Barrett attempted to diversify the company's business beyond semiconductors, but few of these activities were ultimately successful. Bob had also for a number of years been embroiled in litigation. U.S. law did not initially recognize intellectual property rights related to microprocessor topology (circuit layouts), until

9680-557: The reincarnation server, periodically pings each device driver. If the driver dies or fails to respond correctly to pings, the reincarnation server automatically replaces it with a fresh copy. Detecting and replacing non-functioning drivers is automatic, with no user action needed. This feature does not work for disk drivers at present, but in the next release the system will be able to recover even disk drivers, which will be shadowed in random-access memory (RAM). Driver recovery does not affect running processes. When an interrupt occurs, it

9790-536: The release of the 7th-generation Core family (codenamed Kaby Lake ), ushering in the process–architecture–optimization model . As Intel struggled to shrink their process node from 14 nm to 10 nm , processor development slowed down and the company continued to use the Skylake microarchitecture until 2020, albeit with optimizations. While Intel originally planned to introduce 10 nm products in 2016, it later became apparent that there were manufacturing issues with

9900-458: The retail market can be made to activate the switch. Manipulation of the HAP bit was quickly incorporated into the me_cleaner project. From late 2017 on, several laptop vendors announced their intentions to ship laptops with the Intel ME disabled or let the end-users disable it manually: Neither of the two methods to disable the ME discovered so far turned out to be an effective countermeasure against

10010-452: The same way as Windows 3.1 and Windows XP are: same first name. Many improvements have also been made in the structure of the kernel since the Minix 2 release, making the system more reliable. Minix version 3.1.5 was released 5 Nov 2009. It contains X11 , Emacs , vi , cc, GCC , Perl , Python , Almquist shell , Bash , Z shell , FTP client , SSH client , Telnet client, Pine , and over 400 other common Unix utility programs. With

10120-405: The same year, Intel also produced the 3301 Schottky bipolar 1024-bit read-only memory (ROM) and the first commercial metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) silicon gate SRAM chip, the 256-bit 1101. While the 1101 was a significant advance, its complex static cell structure made it too slow and costly for mainframe memories. The three- transistor cell implemented in

10230-506: The security of its technology." In the context of criticism of the Intel ME and AMD Secure Technology it has been pointed out that the National Security Agency (NSA) budget request for 2013 contained a Sigint Enabling Project with the goal to "Insert vulnerabilities into commercial encryption systems, IT systems, ..." and it has been conjectured that Intel ME and AMD Secure Technology might be part of that program. It

10340-514: The site for a major new manufacturing facility. The facility will cost at least $ 20 billion. The company expects the facility to begin producing chips by 2025. The same year Intel also choose Magdeburg , Germany , as a site for two new chip mega factories for €17 billion (topping Tesla 's investment in Brandenburg ). The start of the construction was initially planned for 2023, but this has been postponed to late 2024, while production start

10450-503: The smartphone market. Finding itself with excess fab capacity after the failure of the Ultrabook to gain market traction and with PC sales declining, in 2013 Intel reached a foundry agreement to produce chips for Altera using a 14 nm process. General Manager of Intel's custom foundry division Sunit Rikhi indicated that Intel would pursue further such deals in the future. This was after poor sales of Windows 8 hardware caused

10560-400: The twelve months ending December 31, 2020, at 2,882 Kt (+94/+3.4% y-o-y). Intel plans to reduce carbon emissions 10% by 2030 from a 2020 base year. Intel has self-reported that they have Wafer fabrication plants in the United States, Ireland , and Israel. They have also self-reported that they have assembly and testing sites mostly in China, Costa Rica, Malaysia, and Vietnam, and one site in

10670-556: The vulnerability to exist. Critics like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Libreboot developers, and security expert Damien Zammit accused the ME of being a backdoor and a privacy concern. Zammit stresses that the ME has full access to memory (without the owner-controlled CPU cores having any knowledge), and has full access to the TCP/IP stack and can send and receive network packets independently of

10780-548: The vulnerable Q35 chipset, a keystroke logger ME-based rootkit was demonstrated by Patrick Stewin. Another security evaluation by Vassilios Ververis showed serious weaknesses in the GM45 chipset implementation. In particular, it criticized AMT for transmitting unencrypted passwords in the SMB provisioning mode when the IDE redirection and Serial over LAN features are used. It also found that

10890-408: Was Andy Grove , a chemical engineer , who later ran the company through much of the 1980s and the high-growth 1990s. In deciding on a name, Moore and Noyce quickly rejected "Moore Noyce", near homophone for "more noise" – an ill-suited name for an electronics company, since noise in electronics is usually undesirable and typically associated with bad interference . Instead, they founded

11000-559: Was a thing of the past and that they would now support all "tier-one operating systems" such as Linux, Android, iOS, and Chrome. In 2014, Intel cut thousands of employees in response to "evolving market trends", and offered to subsidize manufacturers for the extra costs involved in using Intel chips in their tablets. In April 2016, Intel cancelled the SoFIA platform and the Broxton Atom SoC for smartphones, effectively leaving

11110-593: Was also ported to the Motorola 68000 and SPARC architectures, supporting the Atari ST , Commodore Amiga , Apple Macintosh and Sun Microsystems SPARCstation computer platforms. A version of Minix running as a user process under SunOS was also available. Minix 2.0, released in 1997, was only available for the x86 and Solaris -hosted SPARC architectures. Minix-vmd was created by two Vrije Universiteit researchers, and added virtual memory and support for

11220-422: Was anticipated to take quite some time for the many individual manufacturers to accomplish, if it ever would be for many systems. Source: None of the known unofficial methods to disable the ME prevent exploitation of the vulnerability. A firmware update by the vendor is required. However, those who discovered the vulnerability note that firmware updates are not fully effective either, as an attacker with access to

11330-466: Was described as giving remote attackers: "full control of affected machines, including the ability to read and modify everything. It can be used to install persistent malware (possibly in firmware), and read and modify any data." In June 2017, the PLATINUM cybercrime group became notable for exploiting the serial over LAN (SOL) capabilities of AMT to perform data exfiltration of stolen documents. SOL

11440-402: Was founded on July 18, 1968, by semiconductor pioneers Gordon Moore (of Moore's law ) and Robert Noyce , along with investor Arthur Rock , and is associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove . The company was a key component of the rise of Silicon Valley as a high-tech center, as well as being an early developer of SRAM and DRAM memory chips, which represented

11550-514: Was launched in October 2013 and Intel is part of the coalition of public and private organizations that also includes Facebook , Google , and Microsoft . Led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee , the A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that access is broadened in the developing world, where only 31% of people are online. Google will help to decrease Internet access prices so that they fall below

11660-443: Was nicknamed "Silent Bob is Silent" by the researchers who had reported it to Intel. It affects numerous laptops, desktops and servers sold by Dell , Fujitsu , Hewlett-Packard (later Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP Inc. ), Intel, Lenovo , and possibly others. Those researchers claimed that the bug affects systems made in 2010 or later. Other reports claimed the bug also affects systems made as long ago as 2008. The vulnerability

11770-955: Was part of the " Wintel " personal computer domination in the 1990s and early 2000s. In 1992, Intel became the biggest semiconductor chip maker by revenue and held the position until 2018 when Samsung Electronics surpassed it, but Intel returned to its former position the year after. Other major semiconductor companies include TSMC , GlobalFoundries , Texas Instruments , ASML , STMicroelectronics , United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), Micron , SK Hynix , Kioxia , and SMIC . Intel's competitors in PC chipsets included AMD , VIA Technologies , Silicon Integrated Systems , and Nvidia . Intel's competitors in networking include NXP Semiconductors , Infineon , Broadcom Limited , Marvell Technology Group and Applied Micro Circuits Corporation , and competitors in flash memory included Spansion , Samsung Electronics, Qimonda , Kioxia, STMicroelectronics, Micron , and SK Hynix . The only major competitor in

11880-525: Was released in February 2012. This version has many new features, including the Clang compiler, experimental symmetric multiprocessing support, procfs and ext2fs filesystem support, and GNU Debugger (GDB). Several parts of NetBSD are also integrated in the release, including the bootloader, libc and various utilities and other libraries . Minix 3.3.0 was released in September 2014. This release

11990-401: Was reported that all Intel processors made since 1995 (besides Intel Itanium and pre-2013 Intel Atom ) had been subject to two security flaws dubbed Meltdown and Spectre. Due to Intel's issues with its 10 nm process node and the company's slow processor development, the company now found itself in a market with intense competition. The company's main competitor, AMD, introduced

12100-428: Was too aggressive. While other foundries used up to four steps in 10 nm or 7 nm processes, the company's 10 nm process required up to five or six multi-pattern steps. In addition, Intel's 10 nm process is denser than its counterpart processes from other foundries. Since Intel's microarchitecture and process node development were coupled, processor development stagnated. In early January 2018, it

#819180