Invention Grant
- Patent Title: Selective access to partitioned branch transfer buffer (BTB) content
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Application No.: US16023201Application Date: 2018-06-29
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Publication No.: US10831491B2Publication Date: 2020-11-10
- Inventor: Vadim Sukhomlinov , Kshitij Doshi
- Applicant: Intel Corporation
- Applicant Address: US CA Santa Clara
- Assignee: Intel Corporation
- Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
- Current Assignee Address: US CA Santa Clara
- Agency: Alliance IP, LLC
- Main IPC: G06F9/40
- IPC: G06F9/40 ; G06F21/50 ; G06F21/55 ; G06F9/38 ; G06F9/30 ; H04L9/00 ; G06F21/52

Abstract:
The present disclosure is directed to systems and methods for mitigating or eliminating the effectiveness of a side channel attack, such as a Spectre type attack, by limiting the ability of a user-level branch prediction inquiry to access system-level branch prediction data. The branch prediction data stored in the BTB may be apportioned into a plurality of BTB data portions. BTB control circuitry identifies the initiator of a received branch prediction inquiry. Based on the identity of the branch prediction inquiry initiator, the BTB control circuitry causes BTB look-up circuitry to selectively search one or more of the plurality of BTB data portions.
Public/Granted literature
- US20190042263A1 SELECTIVE ACCESS TO PARTITIONED BRANCH TRANSFER BUFFER (BTB) CONTENT Public/Granted day:2019-02-07
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