To study how chips work, MIT researchers built their own operating system
4 days ago
- #processor-research
- #operating-systems
- #hardware-security
- Fractal is a new OS kernel developed by MIT CSAIL designed specifically for hardware and microarchitecture research.
- It allows clean, low-noise measurements by running directly on bare metal with multi-privilege concurrency, enabling experiments that switch privilege levels without other changes.
- Using Fractal, researchers discovered new behaviors in Apple's M1 processor, including side-channel vulnerabilities in branch prediction and evidence of Phantom speculative attacks.
- The kernel supports x86_64, ARM64, and RISC-V, offers POSIX compatibility, and aims to serve as shared infrastructure for the research community.
- Findings were disclosed to Apple, and Fractal has been reviewed by Apple's engineers, highlighting its potential impact on security and hardware analysis.