Intel® Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (Intel® AES-NI)

The processor supports Intel® Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (Intel® AES-NI) that are a set of Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) instructions that enable fast and secure data encryption and decryption based on the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Intel® AES-NI are valuable for a wide range of cryptographic applications, such as applications that perform bulk encryption/decryption, authentication, random number generation, and authenticated encryption. AES is broadly accepted as the standard for both government and industry applications, and is widely deployed in various protocols.

Intel® AES-NI consists of six Intel® SSE instructions. Four instructions, AESENC, AESENCLAST, AESDEC, and AESDELAST facilitate high performance AES encryption and decryption. The other two, AESIMC and AESKEYGENASSIST, support the AES key expansion procedure. Together, these instructions provide full hardware for supporting AES; offering security, high performance, and a great deal of flexibility.

This generation of the processor has increased the performance of the Intel^® AES-NI significantly compared to previous products.

The Intel® AES-NI specifications and functional descriptions are included in the Intel® 64 Architectures Software Developer’s Manual, Volume 2. Available at: http://www.intel.com/products/processor/manuals