From EETimes: ARM has unveiled its new microprocessor architecture specifically designed to run deterministic, real-time embedded applications in automotive electronics and other industrial control systems.
One of the highlights of the new architecture -- dubbed ARMv8-R -- is a hardware-assisted virtualization mode designed into its real-time embedded processor. EE Times has learned that Nvidia is likely to be among the first companies to license the ARMv8-R architecture.
Described by ARM as a "bare-metal" hypervisor mode, the new architecture's virtualization feature is in big demand among real-time embedded system designers saddled with the "increasingly sticky problem of combining different software with safety-critical applications," says Richard York, director of product marketing at ARM. The need to run different operating systems, applications, and real-time tasks on a single processor is paramount. Yet system designers are asked to do so by ensuring they are strictly isolated from one another.
Automotive customers -- carmakers and Tier 1s included -- are particularly eager for the virtualization feature, according to York.
The ARMv8-R architecture is designed to run rich OSs (such as Android for a graphical user interface) and real-time operating systems on the same processor. It is also designed to allow both virtual memory and protected memory systems to coexist on one processor.
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