AES instruction set

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Instruction Set is an extension to the x86 instruction set architecture for microprocessors from Intel and AMD proposed by Intel in March 2008.^[1] The purpose of the instruction set is to improve the speed of applications performing encryption and decryption using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

VIA x86 CPUs, AMD Geode, and Marvell Kirkwood (ARM, mv_cesa in Linux), use driver based accelerated AES handling instead. (see Crypto API (Linux))

New instructions

CPUs with AES instruction set

• Intel^[3]
  • Intel Westmere based processors, specifically:
    • Intel Gulftown processors.
    • Intel Clarkdale processors (except Core i3).
    • Intel Arrandale processors (except Core i3, Core i5-4XXM).
  • Intel Sandy Bridge processors:
    • Desktop: all except Pentium, Celeron, Core i3,^[4][5]
    • Mobile: all Core i7 and Core i5. Though the Intel web pages originally listed the 2630QM and 2635QM as not supporting it, those web pages have been updated to indicate that they do.^[6][7] Several vendors have shipped BIOS configurations with the extension disabled,^[8] requiring a BIOS update to fix.^[9]
  • Intel Ivy Bridge processors
    • All of them, including Core i3.
  • Intel has a list of processors that support AES-NI on their web site^[10]
• AMD
  • AMD Bulldozer based processors.^[11]

Performance

In AES-NI Performance Analyzed, Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos found, "... impressive results from a handful of applications already optimized to take advantage of Intel's AES-NI capability".^[12] A performance analysis using the Crypto++ security library showed an increase in throughput from approximately 28.0 cycles per byte to 3.5 cycles per byte with AES/GCM versus a Pentium 4 with no acceleration.^[13][14]

Software supporting AES instruction set

The following software supports the using of AES instruction set.

• BitLocker
• Bloombase Cryptographic Module
• Citrix XenClient 1.0 and on
• Cryptographic Development Kit (CDK) 7.0 from Information Security Corp.^[15]
• Cryptography API: Next Generation (CNG) (requires Windows 7)^[16]
• Crypto++ 5.6.1
• CyaSSL - an open source SSL/TLS implementation supporting AES
• DiskCryptor 0.9
• DiskSec 1.85
• Crypto API (Linux) (used by dm-crypt for full-disk encryption and by other software on Linux)
• FileVault version 2 (Mac OS X Lion) AES full disk encryption ^[17]
• IAIK-JCE version 5.0
• Integrated Performance Primitives (IPP)
• Libgcrypt 1.5.0-beta1
• McAfee Endpoint Encryption for PC 6.x
• FreeBSD's OpenCrypto API (aesni(4) driver)^[18]
• OpenSSL from version 1.0.1^[19]
• Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Patchset 1 (11.2.0.2) Transparent Data Encryption^[20]
• PGP Whole Disk Encryption 10.1.0+ (Only on Windows, The Mac OS X version does not support AES-NI yet)^{[citation needed]}
• SafeGuard Enterprise 6.0 by Sophos (Utimaco)
• SecretAgent 6.1.1 and above from Information Security Corp.^[21]
• SecureDoc 5.2 by WinMagic^[22]
• Solaris (starting with Solaris 10 8/10) through the Solaris Cryptographic Framework^[23] and all software using that framework.
• TRESOR
• TrueCrypt 7.0
• Vormetric Encryption 5

See also

• Advanced Encryption Standard
• CLMUL instruction set
• FMA3
• FMA4
• AVX
• X86

References

External links

• Intel® Advanced Encryption Standard Instructions (AES-NI)
• AES instruction set whitepaper (4.4 Mbyte, pdf) // Intel