Virtualization Support for FPGA-Based Coprocessors Connected via PCI Express to an Intel Multicore Platform

In automotive electronics, the approach to integrate several existing single-core electronics control units into a multicore computer platform is now emerging. The integration may result in mixed-criticality systems where robust segregation between software applications is crucial. Another requirement for this process is the reusability of legacy software. Virtualization is a promising technique which can help to solve these problems. In this paper, we present a hardware software co-designed virtualization support for FPGA-based coprocessors, which are connected via PCI Express to an Intel multicore platform. Experimental results show that our approach outperforms completely software-based virtualization approaches by upto 3.13 times for read and upto 26.26 times for write operations.