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The PSP is licensed from ARM, meaning AMD owns none of the IP of the PSP. If they were to cooperate in this effort, ARM would likely sue them for breaking their

The PSP is licensed from ARM, meaning AMD owns none of the IP of the PSP. If they were to cooperate in this effort, ARM would likely sue them for breaking their licensing agreement. Same reason the recently mainlined Mali drivers (another ARM IP block) got no assistance in development from any of the chip vendors. Touching those projects would break their licensing agreements with ARM and risk having to stop producing their chips that integrate Mali (aka most ARM based chips).

nfriedly 7y ago
That all makes sense for the vendors.. but what does ARM get out of it? A false sense of security?
- d33 7y ago
  The good feeling of cooperating with the agencies.
- ggg2 7y ago
  thats the billion dollar question! not having the clear answer even in public traded companies is a travesty.
- walterbell 7y ago
  An excuse for AMD to switch to a secure enclave based on RISC-V.
  - m-p-3 7y ago
    I wish..
wmf 7y ago
This doesn't sound right. The PSP is an ARM core, but the firmware running on it is likely mostly written by AMD. Also, license agreements can be negotiated.
- p_l 7y ago
  Major parts of the firmware were licensed, I assume for time-to-market reasons. Some of the license issues are also AFAIK due to how, somehow, we let entertainment industry strangle hold us - both ME and PSP now have code involved in setting up "protected av path" which is queried by streaming services et al - and if it's not found, you don't get to play 4k media (at least, afaik, with Netflix, it's 4k). AMD could release a friendlier version but it would not be able to do what majoroty of the market expects it to do. n.b. there are license-built cpus that have alternative firmware in PSP, but it's also closed and they are not really available on open market.
  - StudentStuff 7y ago
    AMD doesn't have the code nor the documentation from ARM to release a minimal PSP, and any attempt by them to do so will end with an injunction against AMD selling processors with TrustZone embedded, meaning they will have a yearlong gap before they can retool and start shipping any PSP-less processors (lead times on silicon changes are loooong). Had AMD not been broke prior to the launch of Zen, they would have likely built their PSP in house, but they were so desperate to stay alive that they sold the 1st gen Zen CPU designs to a Chinese joint venture for $200 million (which kept AMD from bankruptcy).
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- StudentStuff 7y ago
  AMD states that the PSP is "ARM TrustZone ... An Industry Standard Approach" right on their website: https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/security https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/security Wrt renegotiating with ARM, there is no leverage for AMD. TrustZone is already baked into their chips for the next 2 to 3 years, and if the negotiations go badly then ARM could block AMD from selling any processors for at least a year. AMD did hire a security consultant (due to the Change.org petition) that told them TrustZone was vulnerable, but this means they need to implement their own PSP which is something that will take 3 years or more (silicon has a very elongated development cycle). Had AMD not been on death's doorstep for the years preceding the new Zen architecture, they likely would have built their own PSP. Being financially insolvent and desperate to meet the requirements of their OEM partners forced them to license a pre-built PSP.
shmerl 7y ago
Sounds like a good reason to ditch ARM, and roll out their own solution for it. In regards to Mali, why can't ARM support open source driver effort? Qualcomm for example are not against Freedreno, to the point that Google wants to make it the primary supported driver now. And Qualcomm are quite nasty in general, when it comes to patents and stuff. So why not the same thing with Mali?

nfriedly 7y ago

That all makes sense for the vendors.. but what does ARM get out of it? A false sense of security?

d33 7y ago
The good feeling of cooperating with the agencies.
ggg2 7y ago
thats the billion dollar question! not having the clear answer even in public traded companies is a travesty.
walterbell 7y ago
An excuse for AMD to switch to a secure enclave based on RISC-V.
- m-p-3 7y ago
  I wish..

wmf 7y ago

This doesn't sound right. The PSP is an ARM core, but the firmware running on it is likely mostly written by AMD. Also, license agreements can be negotiated.

p_l 7y ago
Major parts of the firmware were licensed, I assume for time-to-market reasons. Some of the license issues are also AFAIK due to how, somehow, we let entertainment industry strangle hold us - both ME and PSP now have code involved in setting up "protected av path" which is queried by streaming services et al - and if it's not found, you don't get to play 4k media (at least, afaik, with Netflix, it's 4k). AMD could release a friendlier version but it would not be able to do what majoroty of the market expects it to do. n.b. there are license-built cpus that have alternative firmware in PSP, but it's also closed and they are not really available on open market.
- StudentStuff 7y ago
  AMD doesn't have the code nor the documentation from ARM to release a minimal PSP, and any attempt by them to do so will end with an injunction against AMD selling processors with TrustZone embedded, meaning they will have a yearlong gap before they can retool and start shipping any PSP-less processors (lead times on silicon changes are loooong). Had AMD not been broke prior to the launch of Zen, they would have likely built their PSP in house, but they were so desperate to stay alive that they sold the 1st gen Zen CPU designs to a Chinese joint venture for $200 million (which kept AMD from bankruptcy).
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
StudentStuff 7y ago
AMD states that the PSP is "ARM TrustZone ... An Industry Standard Approach" right on their website: https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/security https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/security Wrt renegotiating with ARM, there is no leverage for AMD. TrustZone is already baked into their chips for the next 2 to 3 years, and if the negotiations go badly then ARM could block AMD from selling any processors for at least a year. AMD did hire a security consultant (due to the Change.org petition) that told them TrustZone was vulnerable, but this means they need to implement their own PSP which is something that will take 3 years or more (silicon has a very elongated development cycle). Had AMD not been on death's doorstep for the years preceding the new Zen architecture, they likely would have built their own PSP. Being financially insolvent and desperate to meet the requirements of their OEM partners forced them to license a pre-built PSP.

shmerl 7y ago

Sounds like a good reason to ditch ARM, and roll out their own solution for it. In regards to Mali, why can't ARM support open source driver effort? Qualcomm for example are not against Freedreno, to the point that Google wants to make it the primary supported driver now. And Qualcomm are quite nasty in general, when it comes to patents and stuff. So why not the same thing with Mali?