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AMD · Security · Filed Dec 18, 2024 · USPTO published Jun 18, 2026 · Jun 18 release

ATI Technologies Patents a Hardware System That Keeps Streaming Rights Locked Inside the Chip

Every streaming service has its own content-protection system, and right now keeping those systems from interfering with — or leaking into — each other is mostly a software problem. ATI Technologies wants to solve it in silicon instead.

By · Updated · 3 min read

ATI Technologies Patent: GPU Hardware DRM Security, figure from US 2026/0170098 A1
Figure from the official USPTO publication.
Publication number
US 2026/0170098 A1(US20260170098A1)
Applicant
ATI TECHNOLOGIES ULC
Filed · Published
Dec 18, 2024 · Jun 18, 2026
Inventors
Kaushal Amolak Sanghai, Lu Lu, Kathirkamanathan Nadarajah, Anthony Asaro
Status when we published
Examiner raised objections; the company can respond
Document
20 claims
US classification
726/1
Examiner
KNACKSTEDT, JACOB BENEDICT (Art Unit 2408)

What ATI's chip-level content protection actually does

Imagine your GPU is handling a Netflix stream, a Disney+ stream, and a gaming session all at once. Each of those services uses its own digital rights management (DRM) system — a set of locks that keeps the video encrypted and uncopiable. The tricky part is making sure those locks never accidentally open the wrong door.

ATI's patent describes a way to do that entirely in hardware, right inside the processor chip. A dedicated security chip on the processor assigns each DRM system its own keyspace — think of it like a numbered locker that only accepts the matching key. Then a hardware component called a "security gasket" sits between the chip's pipelines and checks that every incoming request has the right locker number before it's allowed through.

The result is that different content-protection systems run side by side without any risk of one accidentally reading or interfering with another. Because it's enforced by hardware rather than software, it's much harder for malicious code to bypass.

How the keyspace system separates DRM pipelines

The patent describes a processor architecture built around three main pieces:

  • Root-of-Trust (RoT) processor — a small, highly trusted security processor embedded in the chip that acts as the authority. It assigns a unique keyspace (essentially a numbered namespace that acts like a password domain) to each DRM channel — Netflix's Widevine, Microsoft's PlayReady, and so on.
  • Security gaskets — hardware gate components that sit in front of each DRM pipeline. Before any data transaction is allowed through, the gasket checks whether the keyspace tag carried by that transaction matches the keyspace assigned to the pipeline it's targeting. Mismatches are blocked.
  • DRM pipelines — the dedicated processing lanes inside the GPU that handle decryption and rendering of protected content for a specific service.

The key insight is that isolation is enforced at the hardware transaction level, not by an operating system or driver. A transaction (a request to read or write data) must carry the correct keyspace identifier, which only the RoT processor can assign. Software running above this layer — including a compromised driver — cannot forge or reassign a keyspace.

Why it matters

DRM enforcement on PCs and GPUs has historically been a cat-and-mouse game fought mostly in software, where a determined attacker can eventually find a way to intercept decrypted frames. Moving the enforcement boundary into chip hardware raises the bar significantly, because bypassing it would require physically tampering with the silicon or finding a flaw in the RoT processor itself.

For you as a viewer or gamer, this is largely invisible — but it's what allows streaming services to offer their highest-quality tiers (4K HDR with lossless audio, for instance) on a platform. Services like Netflix only enable premium quality on hardware that meets strict content-protection standards. A GPU with this architecture would be in a stronger position to qualify for those tiers, which could matter for AMD's next-generation discrete and integrated graphics products.

Source: US 2026/0170098 A1 at the USPTO (PDF). Full patent text and figures are in the official publication.

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