Inside Secure SafeXcel EIP-93/EIP-97/EIP-197 crypto accelerators
Hardware crypto-offload engines that Inside Secure (now Rambus) licenses to SoC vendors, found in embedded networking and security gear. The EIP-97 and EIP-197 blocks appear in Marvell Armada and OCTEON CN913x infrastructure processors, while the smaller EIP-93 is integrated into MediaTek MT7621 and Airoha home-router SoCs to accelerate IPsec, TLS, and disk-encryption workloads.
recommendation
It should stay because the silicon is still being shipped in current products: MediaTek continues to market the MT7621 router SoC, Marvell's 2026 CN913x collateral still highlights its SafeXcel-class security accelerator, and both the safexcel and eip93 source files are seeing active feature work and bug fixes upstream (including new HMAC-MD5 authenc support and IRQ-API updates in 2026). Without this driver, affected routers and security appliances would fall back to much slower software crypto.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
safexcel.c still receives upstream maintenance in 2026; recent patch updates IRQ-vector API usage rather than preparing removal.
- lore.kernel.org
safexcel gained functional work in 2026, adding authenc(hmac(md5),*) support, indicating active feature maintenance.
- lore.kernel.org
eip93-main.c received functional fixes in 2026, showing active bug-fix traffic for the newer EIP93 subdriver.
- cateee.net
LKDDb maps this driver to Inside Secure SafeXcel EIP-97/EIP-197 hardware and shows it remains present in current kernel series.
- cateee.net
LKDDb maps the eip93 subdriver to current kernel support and ties it to MT7621 / Airoha-class platform enablement.
- mediatek.com
MediaTek still markets MT7621, a current networking SoC family with hardware crypto support and OpenWrt positioning, supporting ongoing real-world deployment of EIP93-class integrations.
- aem-origin-uat.marvell.com
Marvell CN913x product collateral in 2026 still advertises a security accelerator, consistent with ongoing Safexcel-class embedded networking deployments.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Obtained lore URLs via lore_file_timeline on drivers/crypto/inside-secure/safexcel.c and eip93/eip93-main.c; both show 2026 feature/fix traffic and stable backports, with no removal discussion visible in the recent timeline sample. Obtained LKDDb, MediaTek, and Marvell URLs via web search. This directory contains two still-maintained embedded SoC crypto-offload drivers used in networking/security appliances; there is no like-for-like upstream replacement beyond slower software crypto fallback, so removal/deprecation is not justified.