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Yep. "Let's put a chip in it" IoT nightmare now applies recursively to chips. Everything is insecure by design. I am really looking forward for either ARM to d

by api 9y ago

Yep. "Let's put a chip in it" IoT nightmare now applies recursively to chips. Everything is insecure by design. I am really looking forward for either ARM to displace x64 or even better RISC-V. With ARM you have many more vendors so more chance for options, and RISC-V is the ultimate in openness.

my123 9y ago
Good luck getting a modern ARM SoC which doesn't depend on binary blobs.
- api 9y ago
  At least you might be able to get a chip without a backdoor in hardware. Binary blobs are still a little easier to audit and can in theory be replaced.
  - my123 9y ago
    ME FW is just a signed binary blob after all... Just running on an x86 core in the PCH, no difference at all compared to Qualcomm SCM/TZ firmware in that regard at least...
- mastax 9y ago
  i.MX6 is modern-ish and is bootable without blobs.
  - ac29 9y ago
    Modern-ish as in smartphone-from-2010? Cortex A9 is pretty old.
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    > i.MX6 is modern-ish and is bootable without blobs. i.MX8 will soon be released in quantity to the public and it is claimed by people who experimented with testing samples of it that it is similarly open as the i.MX6 in this sense.
    - unwind 9y ago
      As a quick note for folks who don't follow embedded SoCs: the NXP i.MX8 [1] is quite high-powered in this niche. It sports eight ARM cores in total: 4X Cortex-A53, 2X Cortex-A72, 2X Cortex-M4F. As someone who has spent ~four years working on software for a single M4F, that reads like "it's a datacenter on a chip", more or less. It's ... big. It also has dual-gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, and enough other low/medium-speed serial interfaces to make you go dizzy. :) I wonder what the pricing will be. [1]: https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/applications-processors/i.mx-applications-processors/i.mx-8-processors/i.mx-8-family-arm-cortex-a53-cortex-a72-virtualization-vision-3d-graphics-4k-video:i.MX8 https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers...

by api 9y ago

my123 9y ago

Good luck getting a modern ARM SoC which doesn't depend on binary blobs.

api 9y ago
At least you might be able to get a chip without a backdoor in hardware. Binary blobs are still a little easier to audit and can in theory be replaced.
- my123 9y ago
  ME FW is just a signed binary blob after all... Just running on an x86 core in the PCH, no difference at all compared to Qualcomm SCM/TZ firmware in that regard at least...
mastax 9y ago
i.MX6 is modern-ish and is bootable without blobs.
- ac29 9y ago
  Modern-ish as in smartphone-from-2010? Cortex A9 is pretty old.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  > i.MX6 is modern-ish and is bootable without blobs. i.MX8 will soon be released in quantity to the public and it is claimed by people who experimented with testing samples of it that it is similarly open as the i.MX6 in this sense.
  - unwind 9y ago
    As a quick note for folks who don't follow embedded SoCs: the NXP i.MX8 [1] is quite high-powered in this niche. It sports eight ARM cores in total: 4X Cortex-A53, 2X Cortex-A72, 2X Cortex-M4F. As someone who has spent ~four years working on software for a single M4F, that reads like "it's a datacenter on a chip", more or less. It's ... big. It also has dual-gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, and enough other low/medium-speed serial interfaces to make you go dizzy. :) I wonder what the pricing will be. [1]: https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/applications-processors/i.mx-applications-processors/i.mx-8-processors/i.mx-8-family-arm-cortex-a53-cortex-a72-virtualization-vision-3d-graphics-4k-video:i.MX8 https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers...