CPU manufacturer AMD has recently announced the Ryzen 4000 series, its new generation of processors.

Alongside this announcement, the company has introduced its new CPU models for the enterprise mobile market.

Now, while this distinction may not be common for everyone, it is important to mention that this type of enterprise CPU has a few differences with the general consumer or enterprise server CPU’s.

Let’s first take a look at these new AMD Pro processors. For mobile PC’s AMD has presented a total of three:

• The Ryzen 3 Pro 4450U, with four cores and eight threads, as well as 4 megabytes of level 3 cache and 3.7 Gigahertz clock speed;
• The Ryzen 5 Pro 4650U, with six cores and twelve threads, and
• The Ryzen 7 Pro 4750U, with eight cores and sixteen threads.

The Ryzen 5 Pro and the Ryzen 7 Pro come with 8 megabytes of level 3 cache and 4.0 and 4.1 Gigahertz clock speed respectively.

These are processors for enterprise ultrabooks which will be the first mobile PCs to feature 7 nanometer processors.

These smaller and denser processors consume less energy and have a greater performance per watt than their bigger counterparts.  They also grant mobile PCs a longer battery life.

These “PRO” series processors don’t just have better specs, but also have a set of special features that AMD has designed to reach the mobile enterprise market’s needs.

This new series of processors include a number of old AMD enterprise features as well as new ones.

It is no secret that cybersecurity is important to businesses.  This means that all devices in contact with sensitive data have to be reliable and secure.

One of the data protection features these processors come with is AMD Memory Guard.

AMD Memory Guard is a form of Transparent Secure Memory Encryption or TSME.

As its name suggests, it encrypts the PC’s RAM to protect users’ data with an additional layer of security.

Storage drives can be encrypted, but their information becomes visible when loaded into RAM. While this information is inside RAM, it can be seen or stolen by malicious software installed on the computer.

Information can also be retrieved from RAM by someone who has stolen the PC.

RAM memory starts to fade away as soon as the system its turned off, but cold boot attacks can be used if the PC is shut down without clearing the memory.

Cold boot attacks consist of booting the computer with the minimum that the operating system will allow.  This allows for the retrieving of sensitive information that may be present in RAM.

In this scenario, unencrypted RAM becomes the weakest link in the hardware security system. But by encrypting RAM, information becomes inaccessible for those without its encryption key.

AMD’s Memory Guard even keeps memory encrypted when the device is hibernating.

This sort of encryption will become even more important for NVDIMM’s that can store data for longer after the computer is unplugged.

TSME is an improvement on AMD’s Secure Memory Encryption or SME.

The difference is that TSME remains “transparent” to the software. In other words this means that its encryption does not run on the software level, and can work with old software that is not designed to work with RAM encryption.

Likewise, AMD’s Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) is an identical encryptor for virtual machines. Only the user of the VM has the key for its data.

Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV), like Secure Memory Encryption (SME), requires compatibility at the software level.

For doing all this encrypting the CPU uses the 128 bit version of the Advanced Encryption Standard. This consumes quite a bit of CPU resources, but according to AMD it is not enough that the user will notice.

Another security feature of the AMD Ryzen Pro 4000 series processors is AMD Secure Boot Process.

The AMD Secure Boot Process protects the BIOS from potential threats to its configuration and firmware.

It is in the BIOS where the previous features we have mentioned can be activated.

The hardware part of the BIOS, is located inside the processor itself. This is the AMD Secure Processor.

The AMD Secure Processor is  a co-processor working on closed-source firmware that is in charge of the advanced security functions on the AMD Ryzen Pro 4000 series processors.

Because it is located inside the processor, it is the computer’s hardware root of trust.

It is also worth mentioning that vendors often have their own sets of security packages, like Lenovo’s Self-Healing BIOS and ThinkShield.

Microsoft, in their partnership with the manufacturer, offers Windows Hello as a technology for unlocking the PC through facial and fingerprint recognition.

But as we said earlier, security is not the only selling point for the enterprise mobile  PC’s that use AMD Ryzen Pro 4000 series processors.

To offer business IT solutions and tools, enterprise mobile PC’s have more remote management functions enabled.

AMD Ryzen Pro 4000 series processors fully support Microsoft Endpoint Manager, a management platform tool for IT support. Plus, AMD also offers 18 months of image stability for these PCs.

Keeping software stable is an important feature for a company’s IT devices and infrastructure.

AMD also ensures 24-month processor availability, meaning that the company will keep a similar hardware and software configuration during this time while guaranteeing company shipments of parts.

AMD Ryzen Pro 4000 series enterprise CPUs have the highest manufacturing and commercial-grade quality, making them more reliable than regular consumer CPU’s, and they have 36 months of warranty.

AMD has said that all these features will be available for the three processors in the AMD Ryzen Pro 4000 series, including its entry model the Ryzen 3 Pro 4450U.

The launch of the AMD Ryzen Pro 4000 series processors and mobile enterprise PCs coincides with the rise of home workers all around the world, and vendors of AMD such as Dell, HP, and Lenovo will announce the release of their own PCs with these processors.