Introduction

The term in-tree refers to the Intel® QAT kernel modules and firmware included in the Linux kernel tree, as opposed to our more common out-of-tree (OOT) driver and firmware, provided directly by Intel at Intel® QuickAssist Technology Driver for Linux* - HW Version 2.0.

Important

Firmware information on this page refers to the in-tree firmware. If you’re using the Intel OOT package, your firmware version may not match what’s on this page.

Detecting Current Firmware

Note

Your firmware may be in a compressed .xz filetype. Decompress first using the sudo xz --decompress compressed_file_filename.xz command.

To detect which firmware version is on a platform or running in a device, see the below commands. Change to the appropriate directory (i.e. cd /usr/lib/firmware/ or cd to [QAT_DIR]/quickassist/qat/fw/ ) and use the appropriate command for your hardware:

strings qat_4xxx*   | grep -oP 'Firmware version: \K[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+'

strings qat_402xx*   | grep -oP 'Firmware version: \K[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+'

strings qat_895xcc* | grep -oP 'Firmware version: \K[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+'

strings qat_c3xxx*  | grep -oP 'Firmware version: \K[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+'

strings qat_c62x*   | grep -oP 'Firmware version: \K[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+'

strings qat_d15xx*   | grep -oP 'Firmware version: \K[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+'

strings qat_c4xxx*   | grep -oP 'Firmware version: \K[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+'

Note

On some Linux distros, the above commands may not produce output. In that case, run a more basic command like strings qat_4xxx* | grep -i version . In our example output, tools version 5.0.1993 . Firmware version: 1.0.10, the tools version is not relevant; the latter Firmware version: 1.0.10 represents the actual version of the current firmware.

QAT Firmware Available

QAT Firmware Available
File Name	Version	SHA256 Checksum	Release Date	Supported Platforms
LICENCE.qat_firmware	2023	0bd9f7cae3cf72b12a63359a725ccbb76ddbd6831372695a9162144329800dd0	2023-03-10	N/A
qat_402xx.bin	1.2.40	b82b6faf0d1da97b78d2ec3b78cbdb3f769cbb1339227b82025d0f2ca4857037	2024-07-12	Intel® Xeon® 6 - SRF - GNR
qat_402xx_mmp.bin	1.2.40	e08d6fa7ee7079e6eaa06f1b92dbfcf7cc60f8a6ec6894710ec1001388bd6d57	2024-07-12	Intel® Xeon® 6 - SRF - GNR
qat_420xx.bin	0.9.0	32f0d78fd739a392dc9cd1be0de1ad4f014137ed0cd44bcb1857101f80b681e8	2025-03-11	Intel® Xeon® 6 - GNR-D
qat_420xx_mmp.bin	0.9.0	db264ee400c2c42fb2b4ce0f7675e142810f3ce4a01da70a8ce91f5a0b838d6b	2025-03-11	Intel® Xeon® 6 - GNR-D
qat_4xxx.bin	1.1.20	1237d40f9d04d4be77becf992ae278f5983a506b90b7353d17a251884b898ef6	2024-01-09	4th and 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors - SRF - EMR
qat_4xxx_mmp.bin	N/A	df9d88b8b453a228076ddd2eb1332045eca654854b3e1bf6cce0edac24854c7c	2023-03-07	4th and 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors - SRF - EMR
qat_895xcc.bin	4.18.0	3bd7958f092eed553f3ae7a4543409d4ac34c0057e8fe609b6dabedd4f5a0077	2023-04-18	Intel® Communication Chipset 8925 to 8955 Series
qat_895xcc_mmp.bin	N/A	4b7bd5930690accaf9dac6301ab7d91ea24bc1398c943ad7aa14c7a8118b63db	2023-04-18	Intel® Communication Chipset 8925 to 8955 Series
qat_c3xxx.bin	4.19.0	99a1e70b24facc6e7834d7a72cbc82d113796af0d70af94f66f224fbc27c5340	2023-04-18	Intel Atom® Processor C3000
qat_c3xxx_mmp.bin	N/A	2869d2306c60dff528bb68c4b55c3c5aab96e43c6fcd858540235eb283118de9	2023-04-18	Intel Atom® Processor C3000
qat_c62x.bin	4.19.0	89bd32da6761afb28f8d801289c6ada2d02d3ddfd0de6626111e710b8276871a	2023-04-18	Intel® C62x Chipset
qat_c62x_mmp.bin	N/A	52bfda93819413807c7be56baf69f0b5f07a4be067ce9c69e61bf78bb395d1da	2023-04-18	Intel® C62x Chipset
qat_d15xx.bin	4.9.0	4045438198416dcfcf8efc58151c7d3c282b23e970960acf666969a257d59c87	2023-09-05	Intel Xeon® Processor D1500
qat_d15xx_mmp.bin	N/A	e716abf6dde6ff78b8063420ea9efee63d262db87fd4c94790fa946b3096005e	2023-09-05	Intel Xeon® Processor D1500
qat_c4xxx.bin	5.1.0	5e24efa1e482f69f73b9115fe974701cf992e79a1d6d38b9d6fb34b90a09d807	2023-09-05	Intel Atom® Processor P5000
qat_c4xxx_mmp.bin	N/A	2dee3a3f2a4e700b156a35b94635327aca7f29cad15fc276f70c8a2ca31e3ee9	2023-09-05	Intel Atom® Processor P5000

1

For Pending firmware, if you are running on a system that does not include the QAT device and the firmware image is not available, you may encounter a warning when building the Linux Kernel or initramfs. To work around these issues, you can use the following commands:

sudo echo "Device not available" > /lib/firmware/qat_420xx.bin
sudo echo "Device not available" > /lib/firmware/qat_420xx_mmp.bin

Download

QAT in-tree firmware can be downloaded from https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/.

QAT Feature Compatibility and Version Requirements

Some qatlib features require a recent kernel driver or firmware version. The table below provides details on features and version requirements for qatlib and underlying QAT kernel driver.

QAT Feature Support Matrix
Feature	qatlib version	Required Kernel Driver Version	Required Firmware Version
Feature	qatlib version	Required Kernel Driver Version	4xxx	402xx	420xx
Symmetric and asymmetric crypto	20.08+	v5.15.3+	Any	Any	Any
Data Compression	21.08+	v5.17+	Any	Any	Any
Enable device 401xx	22.07+	v5.19+	Any	N/A	N/A
Configure dc and sym;asym	22.07+	v6.0+	Any	Any	Any
Configure sym asym sym;dc asym;dc	23.08+	v6.5+	Any	Any	Any
Symmetric Crypto SM3 & SM4 and Asymmetric Crypto SM2	23.11+	v6.6+	Any	Any	Any
DC Chaining (dcc)	23.08+	v6.7+	1.1.20+	Any	Any
Enable device 402xx	24.02+	v6.4+	N/A	1.2.40+	N/A
Enable device 420xx	24.02+	v6.8+	N/A	N/A	Any
Telemetry	N/A	v6.8+	1.1.20+	1.2.40+	Any
RAS	24.02+	v6.9+	1.1.20+	1.2.40+	Any
Treating a CRC generated by the compression engine as an error	25.08+	v5.17+	Pending	Pending	Pending
Programmable CRC for DC service	25.08+	v5.17+	Pending	Pending	Pending

Note

Also, if running on a distro like RHEL or SUSE, the kernel version reported should be ignored. This is because the kernel version reported is only the base kernel version, however, the distro generally contains a more recent qat kernel driver.

Consult your distro support for details.

Linux Kernel Release Timeline & Features Overview

The following table provides an overview of kernel releases, their associated features, and the status of each release. This information is crucial for understanding the development timeline and feature integration within different kernel versions.

Kernel Release Timeline & Features Overview
Release Version	Kernel Release Date	Features
Kernel 6.16	July 2025	Infrastructure rework for 6xxx driver
Kernel 6.15	May 2025	Foundational driver for 6xxx Remove support for NULL destination buffers in acomp Bug fixes
Kernel 6.14	March 2025	Bug fixes
Kernel 6.13	January 2025	Bug fixes
Kernel 6.12	November 2024	RAS recovery flows Bug fixes
Kernel 6.11	September 2024	Bug fixes
Kernel 6.10	June 2024	Live migration SRIOV
Kernel 6.9	April 2024	RAS (reset/recoveries, pfvf compat increment 4->5)
Kernel 6.8	February 2024	Host-only telemetry (debugFS) Support for 420xx
Kernel 6.7	December 2023	Rate Limiting RAS (error/counters) CnV counter PM debug entry Bug fixes acomp-zlib removed User-space enablement: DCC Compression + Hash chaining
Kernel 6.6	October 2023	RAS: heartbeat FW counters User-space enablement: +config profiles, SMX capabilities Bug fixes
Kernel 6.5	August 2023	Advanced Power Management Instances configuration profiles
Kernel 6.4	June 2023	Support for 402xx
Kernel 6.3	April 2023	acomp-zlib
Kernel 6.2	February 2023	acomp deflate
Kernel 6.1 (aka 5.21)	December 2022	bugfixes
Kernel 6.0 (aka 5.20)	October 2022	Configuration through sysfs
Kernel 5.19	August 2022	Fixes to algorithms Registration of cy algos re-enabled in LKCF Support for 401xx
Kernel 5.18	May 2022	PfVf fixes Power mgmt enabled Registration of cy algos disabled in LKCF.
Kernel 5.17	March 2022	Enabler for compression in user space
Kernel 5.16	January 2022	Bug fixes rework in preparation to updates to PFVF
Kernel 5.15	November 2021	Bug fixes related to PFVF
Kernel 5.14	September 2021	Bug fixes
Kernel 5.13	July 2021	Slice hang
Kernel 5.12	May 2021	Bug fixes
Kernel 5.11	February 2021	Foundational driver for 4xxx with support for sym/asym SRIOV enabler.

Known Errata (Linux Firmware/Kernel Modules)

QATE-102222 [KERNEL] SSM soft errors on a compression or translation slices are not reported

Title	[KERNEL] SSM soft errors on a compression or translation slices are not reported.
Reference	QATE-102222
Description	If an SSM soft parity error occurs on a compression or translation slice, these errors might not be reported in dmesg and RAS debug counters are not properly incremented.
Implication	The absence of these errors in the logs may lead to an incorrect assessment of the system’s error resilience and could potentially mask underlying issues with the hardware or firmware.
Resolution	There is no workaround currently available.
Affected OS	Linux
Affected Platform	QAT GEN 5 devices
Driver/Module	qat_420xx

QAT20-23946 [SVM/IOMMU] Request issue doesn’t appear in response

Title	[SVM/IOMMU] Request issue doesn’t appear in response
Reference	QAT20-23946
Description	Without Address Translation (AT) enabled, QAT hardware can’t reliably handle page faults on write operations to invalid memory addresses. This may lead to situations where the operation does not complete properly and error is not reported to user. Only IOMMU pagefault is reported to the user in this case. This does not result in system memory corruption.
Implication	User is responsible for making sure that all destination addresses submitted to HW are valid. Also verify that SW doesn’t generate IOMMU pagefaults.
Resolution	Enable AT for SVM/IOMMU use cases.
Affected OS	All
Affected Platform	QAT 2.0
Driver/Module	QAT Firmware

QAT20-24970 [Firmware] Potential false positive heartbeat failures

Title	[Firmware] Potential false positive heartbeat failures
Reference	QAT20-24970
Description	When a QAT device is fully utilized and is processing requests with large payloads (e.g. >512MB), false positive heartbeat failures may be reported if the heartbeat check interval is set too low.
Implication	Processing multiple requests with big payload sizes may cause false positive heartbeat failure and trigger PF restart.
Resolution	This issue can be resolved by ensuring that heartbeat interval is large enough to allow big payload request be correctly processed. Recommended minimal heartbeat interval value to be used is 1500 ms. This issue will be addressed in future release.
Affected OS	All
Affected Platform	QAT 2.0
Driver/Module	QAT Firmware

QAT20-20272 [XCC/MCC] Spurious heartbeat failures may be observed on some SKUs

Title	[Firmware] Potential false positive heartbeat failures
Reference	QAT20-24970
Description	When a QAT device is fully utilized and is processing requests with large payloads (e.g. >512MB), false positive heartbeat failures may be reported if the heartbeat check interval is set too low.
Implication	Processing multiple requests with big payload sizes may cause false positive heartbeat failure and trigger PF restart.
Resolution	This issue can be resolved by ensuring that heartbeat interval is large enough to allow big payload request be correctly processed. Recommended minimal heartbeat interval value to be used is 1500 ms. This issue will be addressed in future release.
Affected OS	All
Affected Platform	QAT 2.0
Driver/Module	QAT Firmware

QAT20-18924 [MCC] MCC SKUs may consume more power than expected

Title	[MCC] MCC SKUs may consume more power than expected
Reference	QAT20-18924
Description	Due to Power Management changes in MCC platforms one QAT device in every socket is permanently clock gated when not processing requests which leads to inevitable heartbeat failures and device resets. Current FW workaround increases power consumption by keeping QAT in active state. Intel is working on workaround that does not have impact on power consumption.
Implication	Higher power consumption is possible
Resolution	This is no workaround currently available.
Affected OS	Linux
Affected Platform	QAT 2.0
Driver/Module	QAT Firmware

QATE-45537 [Firmware] - Firmware authentication may fail if PCIe* errors occur or are injected

Title	[Firmware] - Firmware authentication may fail if PCIe* errors occur or are injected.
Reference	QATE-45537
Description	If PCIe* errors occur or are injected on a platform, the QAT firmware authentication may fail.
Implication	The system may need to be rebooted in order to load QAT firmware successfully.
Resolution	None
Affected OS	Linux*
Affected Platform	QAT 1.6, QAT 1.7
Driver/Module	CPM IA - Common

QATE-68323 [VIRT] Attempting to create any number of QAT VF’s results in all VF’s created

Title	[VIRT] Attempting to create any number of QAT VF’s results in all VF’s created
Reference	QATE-68323
Description	To enabled SR-IOV on the device user must write number to the `sriov_numvf` virtual file. As recommended by community, the value passed to the `sriov_numvf` file indicates how many VF’s user wants to create. Current implementation of the driver doesn’t support this because regardless of the written value driver will create all available. Everything else is working as expected, meaning, user writes 0 to to disabled SR-IOV and negative number are not allowed.
Implication	When the SR-IOV is enabled on the device the number of the VFs (Virtual Functions) is fixed to maximum for the device.
Resolution	In virtual environment host always expose full device capabilities, hence the host configuration determines the resource availability for the particular guest (VM).
Affected OS	Linux
Affected Platform	QAT 2.0
Driver/Module	QAT Firmware

QAT20-40049 [KERNEL] Intel QAT CnV Error with LZ4 Compression on GEN 4 and GEN 5 Devices

Title	[KERNEL] Intel QAT CnV Error with LZ4 Compression on GEN 4 and GEN 5 Devices.
Reference	QAT20-40049
Description	A Compress and Verify (CnV) error is reported on GEN 4 and GEN 5 devices when executing LZ4 compression requests. The issue occurs when CpaDcSessionSetupData:accumulateXXHash is false and CpaDcOpData:flushFlag is not equal to CPA_DC_FLUSH_FINAL.
Implication	No compressed data will be returned to the application. The produced and consumed data counters in CpaDcRqResults will be 0 and error code CPA_DC_VERIFY_ERROR will be returned.
Resolution	Do not submit request with both accumulateXXHash disabled and flushFlag not equal to CPA_DC_FLUSH_FINAL.
Affected OS	Linux
Driver/Module	CPM-IA - Data Compression

Resolved Errata (Linux Firmware/Kernel Modules)

This section lists those errata related to firmware and kernel modules which were previously resolved.

QATE-8109 [Firmware] - Driver and firmware versions are not reported to user space

Title	Driver and firmware versions are not reported to user space.
Reference	QATE-8109
Description	Driver and firmware versions are not reported through the sysfs and cannot be queried using the icp api.
Implication	User applications are not able to query the software package versions.
Resolution	This is resolved with the 4.0.1 release.
Affected OS	Linux
Affected Platform	QAT 1.6, QAT 1.7
Driver/Module	CPM IA - Common

QATE-4051 - Unable to activate driver using QAT1.7 devices in full passthrough mode

Title	Unable to activate driver using QAT1.7 devices in full passthrough mode
Reference	QATE-4051
Description	The new firmware authentication feature requires PF devices to be reset via function level reset (FLR) before firmware download. In KVM guests, all pass-through devices attached to a VM are reset at boot time. Any further device reset is trapped by the hypervisor and not issued. This causes firmware authentication to fail after the first firmware download. Full device pass-through might work in some conditions when using vfio and if the host kernel and the platform support it.
Implication	Direct mode feature not available on KVM guests for devices on full pass-through mode.
Resolution	Refer to appendix A of Using Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT) with Intel® QuickAssist Technology (document number 330689) for instructions on how to pass through a QAT PF to a VM. Talk to your Intel® representative for more information.
Affected OS	Linux
Affected Platform	QAT 1.6, QAT 1.7, QAT 1.8
Driver/Module	CPM IA - Common

License

Copyright (c) Intel Corporation.

Redistribution.  Redistribution and use in binary form, without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

* Redistributions must reproduce the above copyright notice and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
* Neither the name of Intel Corporation nor the names of its suppliers may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
* No reverse engineering, decompilation, or disassembly of this software is permitted.

Limited patent license.  Intel Corporation grants a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license under patents it now or hereafter owns or controls to make, have made, use, import, offer to sell and sell ("Utilize") this software, but solely to the extent that any such patent is necessary to Utilize the software alone, or in combination with an operating system licensed under an approved Open Source license as listed by the Open Source Initiative at http://opensource.org/licenses.  The patent license shall not apply to any other combinations which include this software.  No hardware per se is licensed hereunder.

DISCLAIMER.  THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.