HiSilicon Hip06/Hip07 SEC crypto accelerator
A hardware cryptography accelerator (Security Engine, "SEC" v1) built into HiSilicon's Hi1610 and Hi1612 ARM server processors from the 2015–2016 Hip06/Hip07 generation. It offloads symmetric cipher operations from the CPU on those early HiSilicon server boards, which were used in some Chinese-market data-center deployments before being superseded by the Kunpeng line.
recommendation
Worth keeping but documenting its niche, because the Hip06/Hip07 silicon it targets is roughly a decade old and HiSilicon now markets Kunpeng processors instead, so new deployments are unlikely. However, the code is still receiving real bug fixes upstream as recently as 2025 and 2026, so there is clearly an installed base being maintained, and a successor driver (hisi_sec2) already covers newer HiSilicon crypto hardware.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
`sec_algs.c` received a real bug fix in 2026 (`crypto: hisilicon - Fix dma_unmap_single() direction`), indicating live upstream maintenance rather than abandonment.
- lore.kernel.org
`sec_drv.c` received a substantive correctness fix in 2025 (`Use int type to store negative error codes`), showing recent attention in the linux-crypto tree.
- en.wikichip.org
Hi1610 and Hi1612, matching the Hip06/Hip07 generation this driver targets, are older HiSilicon server processors introduced in 2015 and 2016.
- hisilicon.com
HiSilicon's current public server-processor product page markets Kunpeng, not Hip06/Hip07-era parts, supporting the conclusion that this hardware is no longer sold new.
- git.kernel.org
Kernel Kconfig describes `CRYPTO_DEV_HISI_SEC` as support for the SEC engine in Hip06/Hip07 and `CRYPTO_DEV_HISI_SEC2` as support for SEC version 2, making `hisi_sec2` the natural successor for newer HiSilicon crypto hardware.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Keep but annotate. Lore history shows ongoing bug-fix/API-churn work through 2025-2026 and no removal signal, so deprecate/remove would be too aggressive. The hardware itself is old: Kconfig ties this driver to Hip06/Hip07, and web evidence places that family in the 2015-2016 Hi16xx server generation while HiSilicon's current product page promotes Kunpeng instead. That points to legacy installed-base use with low new deployment, not zero deployment. URLs obtained via `lore_file_timeline` (two lore links), `web.search/open` (WikiChip and HiSilicon product page), and one kernel.org Kconfig URL by canonical recall.