A Qualitative Comparison of MPSoC Mobile and Embedded Virtualization Techniques

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 single device. In this paper we investigate the processor architectures in the mobile and embedded space while examining their formal virtualizabilty. 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.