US 7,013,484 B1Granted

Managing a secure environment using a chipset in isolated execution mode

AssigneeIntel Corporation

InventorsCarl M. Ellison, Roger A. Golliver, Howard C. Herbert, Derrick C. Lin, Francis X. McKeen, Gilbert Neiger, Ken Reneris, James A. Sutton, Shreekant S. Thakkar, Millind Mittal

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Abstract

A chipset is initialized in a secure environment for an isolated execution mode by an initialization storage. The secure environment has a plurality of executive entities and is associated with an isolated memory area accessible by at least one processor. The at least one processor has a plurality of threads and operates in one of a normal execution mode and the isolated execution mode. The executive entities include a processor executive (PE) handler. PE handler data corresponding to the PE handler are stored in a PE handler storage. The PE handler data include a PE handler image to be loaded into the isolated memory area after the chipset is initialized. The loaded PE handler image corresponds to the PE handler.

Claims34

Dependent claims

A processing system comprising:

a processor to support an isolated execution mode, a normal execution mode, a first privilege ring within the normal execution mode for use by an operating system (OS) kernel, and a second privilege ring within the normal execution mode for use by a software application;
a memory responsive to the processor, the memory to include an isolated memory area, the isolated memory area to be inaccessible to the processor in the normal execution mode;
a chipset responsive to the processor, the chipset to support the normal execution mode and the isolated execution mode;
processor executive (PE) handler storage in the chipset to store at least part of a PE handler, the PE handler to be loaded into the isolated memory area during a boot process for the processing system after at least a portion of the processing system is initialized, the PE handler to manage, from the isolated execution mode, at least one subsequent operation in the boot process.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.