
Preface: May 2021 to May 2023 (ARM GPU evolution)
Valhall 3rd Gen – On May 25, 2021, Arm announced their Valhall 3rd Gen GPU Architecture (as part of TCS21), including the Mali-G710, Mali-G510, and Mali-G310 GPUs.
Valhall 4th Gen – On June 28, 2022, Arm announced their Valhall 4th Gen GPU Architecture (as part of TCS22), including the Immortalis-G715, Mali-G715, and Mali-G615 GPUs.
5th Gen – On May 29, 2023, Arm announced their 5th Gen Arm GPU Architecture (as part of TCS23), including the Immortalis-G720, Mali-G720 and Mali-G620 GPUs.
Background: The New 5th Gen Arm GPU Architecture
The 5th Gen GPU architecture introduces a key feature called Deferred Vertex Shading (DVS), which revolutionizes data flow within the GPU and expands the number of GPU cores, reaching up to 16 cores for enhanced performance.
The Arm 5th Gen GPU architecture is the most efficient GPU architecture Arm has ever created, designed with CPU and system architecture in mind. It redefines parts of the graphics pipeline to significantly reduce memory bandwidth, thus improving total system efficiency and power.
Technical reference: It solves the bandwidth problem of the traditional model because the fragment shader reads a small block each time and puts it on the chip. It does not need to read the memory frequently until the final operation is completed and then writes it to the memory. You can even further reduce memory reads and writes by compressing tiles. In addition, when some areas of the image are fixed, the function can be called to determine whether the tiles are the same to reduce repeated rendering.
Vulnerability details: Judging from the descriptions of the two different vulnerabilities, they appear to be the same (see below):
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-2937
Use After Free vulnerability in Arm Ltd Bifrost GPU Kernel Driver, Arm Ltd Valhall GPU Kernel Driver, Arm Ltd Arm 5th Gen GPU Architecture Kernel Driver allows a local non-privileged user to make improper GPU memory processing operations to gain access to already freed memory.This issue affects Bifrost GPU Kernel Driver: from r41p0 through r49p0; Valhall GPU Kernel Driver: from r41p0 through r49p0; Arm 5th Gen GPU Architecture Kernel Driver: from r41p0 through r49p0.
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-4607
Use After Free vulnerability in Arm Ltd Bifrost GPU Kernel Driver, Arm Ltd Valhall GPU Kernel Driver, Arm Ltd Arm 5th Gen GPU Architecture Kernel Driver allows a local non-privileged user to make improper GPU memory processing operations to gain access to already freed memory.This issue affects Bifrost GPU Kernel Driver: from r41p0 through r49p0; Valhall GPU Kernel Driver: from r41p0 through r49p0; Arm 5th Gen GPU Architecture Kernel Driver: from r41p0 through r49p0.
Affected Products
Bifrost GPU kernel driver versions : r41p0 (inclusive) ~ r49p0 (inclusive)
Valhall GPU Kernel Driver versions: r41p0 (inclusive) ~ r49p0 (inclusive)
Arm 5th Generation GPU Architecture Kernel Driver versions: r41p0 (inclusive) ~ r49p0 (inclusive)