A hypervisor approach with real-time support to the MIPS M5150 processor

Embedded software has become a major concern in current embedded systems. Recent embedded products include dynamic software features that are driven by the users´ needs. Still, real-time applications are required to execute along non real-time applications as both of them can be part of a bigger and more complex software system. Virtualization has emerged as a feasible technique for embedded systems as it provides more secure platforms, improves software design quality and reduces costs. Nevertheless, real-time and memory constraints require the development of different techniques from those widely applied to enterprise computing. However, distinguished vendors have designed virtualization extensions for their processors and a few manufacturers have adopted them. This work presents a hypervisor implementation approach with real-time support to the MIPS M5150 processor which supports hardware-assisted virtualization. The results show that the implementation allows full-virtualization and communication among virtual machines with minimal overhead while providing strong spatial and temporal isolation between virtual machines.