Taiwan-based processor IP provider Andes Technology has stressed that following a thorough review, none of its CPU products are affected by either Meltdown or Spectre bugs, according to a statement issued by the firm in response to recent reports concerning Intel CPU security flaws.

With security as a major concern in designing embedded SoCs for customers, Andes has taken the initiative to review its products, finding all its embedded processors are immune to attacks of both bugs, company president Frankwell J M Lin said in the statement. He added that to strengthen the security of AndesCore processors, Andes will continue to track the latest analysis and upgrades on processor security issues as references for its future processor designs.

Meanwhile, Charlie Su, CTO and senior R&D VP of Andes, also said that the immunity of the firm's CPU products to bug attacks is mainly attributed to the special way the processor pipelines are designed. "No subsequent access will be possible when privilege violations are encountered in our designs and our branch speculation does not allow subsequent instruction to go too far to allow side-channel information leak," he said.

Su stressed that the firm's secure AndesCore S8 processor not only offers strong protection against unauthorized access such as Meltdown and Spectre, but also manages not to leak information under strong physical attacks.

Andes now offers N, D, E, S and NX families of AndesCore processors, with the S family mainly serving as heavily-armored security processors. But the company also recognizes that processors of the remaining AndesCore families also need to process confidential information in open environments with security concerns.