Intel® Adds AES Cryptographic Instruction Set to Processors

Intel, earlier this year, announced plans to add Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cryptography to their future processors. This became a reality when they started releasing processors using Intel’s new 32nm lithography technology. Intel labels the new instructions as AES New Instructions (AES-NI). The goal of these instructions is to improve the AES cryptographic performance over software based AES algorithms. In theory, this could help improve the performance of SSL/TLS-based communications when using HTTPS connections in a web browser. The major C/C++ compilers support the new AES-NI instruction set.

For more information on AES-NI including how to use the new instructions, see this link:

Some of processors supporting AES-NI are the Intel Core:
• i7-980X
• i7-660UM
• i7-640LM
• i7-620UM
• i5-680
• i5-670
• i5-661
• i5-660
• i5-655K
• i5-650

Scott Chapman