Hardware

Advances in hardware (typically as it relates to the software that runs on top).

An experimental security analysis of an industrial robot controller

~ Adrian Colyer ~ 6 Comments
An experimental security analysis of an industrial robot controller Quarta et al., IEEE Security and Privacy 2017 This is an industrial robot: The International Federation of Robotics forecasts that, by 2018, approximately 1.3 million industrial robot units will be employed in factories globally, and the international market value for "robotized" systems is approximately 32 billion ... Continue Reading

Hardware is the new software

~ Adrian Colyer ~ 8 Comments
Hardware is the new software Baumann, HotOS'17 This is a very readable short paper that sheds an interesting light on what's been happening with the Intel x86 instruction set architecture (ISA) of late. We're seeing a sharp rise in the number and complexity of extensions, with some interesting implications for systems researchers (and for Intel!). ... Continue Reading

SGXBounds: memory safety for shielded execution

~ Adrian Colyer ~ 3 Comments
SGXBounds: memory safety for shielded execution Kuvaiskii et al., EuroSys'17 We've previously looked at a number of Intel SGX-related papers in The Morning Paper, including SCONE, which today's paper builds on. SGX comes with a memory encryption engine and seeks to protect trusted applications from an untrusted operating system, providing confidentiality and integrity guarantees. SGX, ... Continue Reading

Apps with hardware: enabling run-time architectural customization in smart phones

~ Adrian Colyer ~ 3 Comments
Apps with hardware: enabling run-time architectural customization in smart phones Coughlin et al., USENIX ATC'16 This week we've had a couple of hardware-related papers, and one touching on mobile apps (in the context of DNNs). Today's choice brings those themes together with some really creative thinking - programmable hardware for smartphones! With thanks to Afshaan ... Continue Reading

Determining application-specific peak power and energy requirements for ultra-low power processors

~ Adrian Colyer ~ 2 Comments
Determining application-specific peak power and energy requirements for ultra-low power processors Cherupalli et al., ASPLOS'17 We're straying a little bit out of The Morning Paper comfort zone again this morning to look at one of the key hardware issues affecting the design of IoT devices: how much energy they use, and the related question of ... Continue Reading

Typed Architectures: architectural support for lightweight scripting

~ Adrian Colyer ~ 3 Comments
Typed Architectures: architectural support for lightweight scripting Kim et al., ASPLOS'17 JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Lua, and related dynamically typed scripting languages are increasingly popular for developing IoT applications. For example, the Raspberry Pi is associated with Python; Arduino and Intel's Galileo and Edison are associated with JavaScript. In these constrained hardware environments though, using JITs ... Continue Reading