Video gamers know about cheat codes, but assembly language programmers are often in search of undocumented instructions. One way to find them is to map out all of a CPU’s opcodes and where there are ...

A monthly overview of things you need to know as an architect or aspiring architect. Unlock the full InfoQ experience by logging in! Stay updated with your favorite authors and topics, engage with ...

Video gamers know about cheat codes, but assembly language programmers are often in search of undocumented instructions. One way to find them is to map out all of a CPU’s opcodes and where there are ...

Last month, a team of Google security researchers released a tool that can modify microcode of AMD's processors based on the Zen microarchitecture, the Zentool. While this is a security vulnerability, ...

My understanding was that a CPU microcode update is stored in non-volatile memory on the motherboard and is loaded by the BIOS or UEFI into volatile memory on the CPU during boot. And because the ...

Something to look forward to: Intel's plan to address voltage-related crashes on desktop processors with a patch has some worried that performance and overclocking will take a hit. Past updates to ...

Last month, the Google Security Team identified a security vulnerability in AMD's CPUs ranging from Zen 1 to Zen 4 dubbed "EntrySign" that allowed malicious users with ring 0 access to load unsigned ...

In context: Microcode is machine instruction sets that load from the BIOS. It acts much like firmware for the PC's processor. According to MSI Marketing Director Eric van Beurden, AMD will be ...

Microsoft has released a new batch of Intel microcode updates for Windows 10 20H2, 2004, 1909, and older versions to fix new hardware vulnerabilities discovered in Intel CPUs. When Intel finds bugs in ...