A Qualitative Comparison of MPSoC Mobile and Embedded Virtualization Techniques

TL;DR

This paper compares virtualization techniques in MPSoC mobile and embedded systems, highlighting their importance for resource management, security, and supporting multiple OSs despite resource constraints.

Contribution

It provides a qualitative comparison of virtualization methods in mobile and embedded MPSoC systems, emphasizing their necessity for security and resource management.

Findings

Virtualization is feasible and beneficial for MPSoC mobile and embedded devices.

Different virtualization solutions enable coexistence of multiple OSs.

Virtualization supports security, resource management, and BYOD applications.

Abstract

Virtualization is generally adopted in server and desktop environments to provide for fault tolerance, resource management, and energy efficiency. Virtualization enables parallel execution of multiple operating systems (OSs) while sharing the hardware resources. Virtualization was previously not deemed as feasible technology for mobile and embedded devices due to their limited processing and memory resource. However, the enterprises are advocating Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) applications that enable co-existence of heterogeneous OSs on a single mobile device. Moreover, embedded device require virtualization for logical isolation of secure and general purpose OSs on a single device. In this paper, we investigate the processor architectures in the mobile and embedded space while examining their formal visualizability. We also compare the virtualization solutions enabling coexistence of multiple OSs in Multicore Processor System-on-Chip (MPSoC) mobile and embedded systems. We advocate that virtualization is necessary to manage resource in MPSoC designs and to enable BYOD, security, and logical isolation use cases.